An Inspector Calls on London’s The Athenaeum Hotel

Rating:

Most people who come to London will pass The Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly, near Hyde Park Corner. It’s the one with the vertical garden overlooking Green Park.

I’d assumed it was stuffy and expensive but now, after a multi-million-pound refurb, it’s far from it, billing itself as a boutique hotel — even though there are close to 150 bedrooms.

Mind you, it’s still expensive, and that’s after taking advantage of the online special offer, which, for about £310, gets you a standard room (with an upgrade, space permitting), a free cocktail and 15 per cent off food at the Galvin brothers’ restaurant.

Reboot: The Athenaeum is a landmark opposite Green Park, and has had a major refit 

No breakfast included, you will notice. So it’s hard to get out of here without dropping at least £400.

Yes, it’s in a prime spot, but our executive room is pokey and the dingy bathroom laden with cheap, plastic containers of cotton wool and ear sticks, and a rather stingy supply of tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

And how come Arthur The Bear is waiting to greet us on the table by the window with a label round his neck saying: ‘My name is Arthur, what’s yours? Ask at reception if you want to take me home’?

And why’s the towel rail stone cold? And what’s with the naff picture that changes its image depending on where you stand when you look at it? What’s more, surely even the most touristy of tourists would take a dim view of the plastic cabinet near the bed with toy guardsmen in it.

Enough grumbles — well, almost. Down in the cramped, basement spa, a young woman at reception can hardly bring herself to stop texting before answering my question about the steam room.

Where The Athenaeum comes into its own is on the ground floor, thanks to the slinky new bar. The barman persuades me to have a clay pot Negroni, saying it can’t be found anywhere else in town.

Pull up a seat, grab a drink: The Athenaeum comes into its own in its slinky new bar 

‘How come?’

‘Because we have a clay pot.’

Dinner is a disappointment. My lasagne of Dorset crab is a mousse with a couple of round, flat pieces of pasta that form a jelly-like concoction; and my wife’s roast beef from the Sunday menu is over-cooked and drowned in sweet gravy.

We also don’t think £21 for the continental breakfast option amounts to great value.

So we have coffee and a croissant, pack our bags and inform Arthur that, sorry, he won’t be coming home with us.