London, UK: new luxury hotel openings

As London counts down to the 2012 Olympics, a flurry of new luxury hotels have thrown open their doors, offering visitors everything from vintage cocktails to rooftop spas and sightseeing trips by helicopter. Here are six of the most eye catching, spread across the capital from Clerkenwell to Kew. Rates are for a double room in June, including VAT. Corinthia Hotel London London is full of magnificent buildings we never notice – until someone hangs a "Hotel" sign over the front door. Such is the case with what was once the monumental Hôtel Métropole, which opened in 1885 near Charing Cross station but was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence for much of the last century. With its belle époque turrets and huge-pillared halls, it must have made a splendid office space. Now, this seven-storey pile in Whitehall has been returned to its former life as a grand 294-room hotel. Opened at the end of April, with seven sumptuous suites and an ESPA Life spa to follow this summer, its inviting mix of the classic and the contemporary is heralded by a 1,001-crystal Baccarat chandelier exploding above the lobby. One masterly touch is the hotel's use of British artists, including graceful prints by Marcus James and metalwork commissioned from the talented Greenwich studio, Based Upon. Another is getting David Collins Studio, the style gurus behind many of London's top hotel bars and restaurants, to design the appropriately elegant Bassoon Bar and the banking hall-like Massimo restaurant – a more challenging space, where Roman chef Massimo Riccioli presides over a Mediterranean menu majoring on fish and seafood.= The rooms are warm and welcoming with restful beige and olive tones, and dreamy Hypnos beds. Guests can also enjoy a Daniel Galvin hair salon and Harrods' first shop set inside a hotel. With an excellent location and resolutely high standards, the Corinthia is good news for fans of smart London hotels – although its prices are so high it seems likely that only MPs on pre-scandal expenses will be able to afford it. Order two cocktails and some water at Bassoon and you won't see much change from a £50 note.     Verdict An impressive debut from an unfamiliar name.     020 7930 8181; www.corinthia.com, from £450. W London Leicester Square "Getting ready for 2012" scream the shiny black hoardings currently boxing in Leicester Square as Westminster City Council gives Britain's "home of cinema" a much-needed revamp. At its north-west corner, what used to be the Swiss Centre is now the mighty, newbuild, artily white-dotted, 192-room W Hotel, already making a powerful bid to be the leading light of the West End entertainment scene after its opening in February. Part of an immensely successful international brand created by Starwood Hotels & Resorts (New York has four W hotels), this one is unashamedly devoted to rock 'n' roll values with its galaxies of mirror-balls, guest list-only Wyld Bar, showbiz-friendly screening room and a hangover-curing spa. The theming is fearless – staff are known as "talent", fashion-savvy "happenings" take place monthly, while the standard rooms – categorised as "Wonderful" and reached via dungeon-dark corridors – are a cheap and cheerful studio-style mix of washroom, workspace and ready-to-romp bed. What's not to like? Well, don't waste your money in the companion Spice Market restaurant created by multi-Michelin-starred Jean-Georges Vongerichten, which has too many things wrong to list here, and only check in if you intend to party. The mood in the Lounge bar can be great, with most guests young, happy, on expenses and wearing black. Outside, the nights are noisy, with party crowds sloshing about and buskers playing jazz until 3am – then the builders' drills start at 8am. But for most guests, sleep is the last thing on the agenda – and that's just how Leicester Square should be.     Verdict Heaven for some, hell for others.     020 7758 1000; www.wlondon.co.uk, from £322. Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane As befits a top address on the Monopoly board, Park Lane is home to a clutch of well-established luxury hotels that now includes a born-again Four Seasons. Opened in January after a top-to-toe makeover that took more than two years, the hotel that was once the Inn on the Park in Hamilton Place is today a smart and glossy residence with 192 rooms, of which 45 are one, two or three-bedroom suites. Close to Hyde Park Corner and the dandyish streets of Mayfair, the hotel manages to feel excitingly wired to London life while also offering a homely sanctuary. Interiors are designed by Pierre-Yves Rochon, a Four Seasons favourite, who has created colourful bar-lounge areas but kept the bedrooms calm and grown-up with elegant walnut and sycamore wood-panelling. I don't normally get excited about hotel corridors, but here they are adorned with oversized black-and-white fashion photographs from Vogue magazine that are so eye-catching they may well delay your progress up to the 10th-floor rooftop spa and gym (both of which offer uplifting views), or down to the assured Italian restaurant, Amaranto. Connoisseurs of the Martini experience will enjoy the companion bar, where manager Davide Guide has a created a tremendous signature cocktail, the Amarantini, that is well worth the journey.     Verdict Polished moves from a trustworthy brand.     020 7499 0888; www.fourseasons.com, from £594. Hotel Verta There's an engaging, James Bond feel to this glassy, five-storey riverfront hotel set beside Battersea heliport. Opened last September, Hotel Verta calls itself "London's Vertical Gateway", and it is certainly very entertaining to sit in its airy Patrisey restaurant enjoying a faultless breakfast while the rich and powerful come choppering into town from their country seats. Quadruple glazing ensures there are no sound issues, and the 70 bedrooms are quietly sexy with blissful beds, cosy bathrobes and a television in the bathroom wall. The food is excellent and there's a small, top-class spa, but perhaps the best thing is Hotel Verta's unforced sense of fun. Taking a cue from the golden age of luxury travel, the smartly uniformed female staff have the glamour of air stewardesses with their bright red shoes, nails and lips, while the plush Vertilon Bar offers a "Jet Fuel" menu. And when you retire to bed, there's a little turndown treat on your pillow labelled "Chocs Away"… The only fly on the windscreen is the less-than-central location. Set on the south bank of the Thames midway between Battersea and Wandsworth Bridges, Hotel Verta will suit guests who like to drive (there is valet parking) or who don't mind the ten-minute walk to Clapham Junction station. There are attractive packages if you're up for the Chelsea or Hampton Court Flower Shows, or for a special occasion book a half-hour scenic helicopter flight over London, from £2,400 for four passengers.     Verdict A fun hotel on the banks of the Thames, but a bit out of the way.     020 7801 3500; www.hotelverta.com, from £129 with breakfast. Zetter Townhouse Venerable and village-like, Clerkenwell is one of London's most enjoyable neighbourhoods – and there are clear signs that it is now getting its groove back after a punishing recession. In the same week in April that this refreshingly individual 13-room boutique hotel opened, the creators of the Hotel du Vin group also launched their first stand-alone Bistro du Vin restaurant close by. Formed from two Georgian buildings that once housed solicitors' offices, Zetter Townhouse lies just across the cobbles of St John's Square from the much larger Zetter Hotel, a well-established designer bolt-hole that offers key support services such as a full breakfast and fine dining at Bistrot Bruno Loubet. Here the style is very different, with the lounge, bar and dining room dressed theatrically in a jumble of Victoriana that includes a stuffed kangaroo, armchairs upholstered with sacking, and walls crammed with oil paintings, curios and old photos. There is no reception – just a laptop on a dresser – and a star attraction is a bar overseen by master mixologist Tony Conigliaro, who has been aptly described as "the Heston Blumenthal of cocktails". Like that chef, he gets equally excited by both the experimental and the traditional: tipples bear names like Somerset Sour, Twinkle and The Flintlock, while bar snacks range from sardines on toast to a terrific broad bean and lovage pesto risotto. Go up the stairs – which are papered with high-class collages assembled from old magazines and newspapers – and you'll find rooms that come with all the things we humble guests cry out for – free Wi-Fi and water, lights and taps you can work, and a kettle. Neat touches include vintage radios converted into iPod docks and dressing gowns bearing a logo of a black pipe from which "Zzzzz" smoke rises. Unusually, the smallest and least expensive rooms on the top floor are perhaps the best, decorated with joyful woodwork salvaged from a circus carousel. With rates dropping from Friday to Sunday, these are a smart choice for a weekend break.     Verdict A tour-de-force bursting with character and invention.     020 7324 4444; www.thezettertownhouse.com, from £185. London Syon Park Much loved for its gorgeous run of five rooms designed by Robert Adam in the 1760s, Syon House is an engrossing, privately-owned stately home set on the banks of the Thames opposite Kew Gardens. Given that it is bordered by a splendid domed Great Conservatory from 1826, and enchanting gardens landscaped by Capability Brown, it would seem reasonable to expect that the opening of a new five-star hotel in the grounds of Syon Park last March would offer us some kind of a delightful Arcadian retreat just seven miles from the hectic whirl of central London. Sadly, something went very wrong at the planning stage, and the design of this 137-room, newbuild hotel seems almost criminally inappropriate. Arranged in motel-like rows, its steep-roofed brick buildings look cheap while the low-ceilinged bedrooms are furnished in a hard, urban style of black and silver that includes astonishingly naff notes such as bedside lamps sporting a twee budgerigar. My room came with a telescope, presumably all the better for viewing the huge car park outside – or perhaps the bright-red rubbish skips of the adjacent garden centre? All this is a great shame given that London Syon Park is part of Hilton's top-end Waldorf Astoria collection and that many aspects of the hotel are very enjoyable. The staff are exceedingly well-drilled, the subterranean Kallima Spa is a cosseting space run with enthusiasm, while the chic, smartly furnished The Capability restaurant is masterminded by Lee Stretton, formerly of Brown's Hotel. He smokes his own salmon and uses produce from the estate's orchard and herb and vegetable gardens to create an enticing British menu, only marred by its overpricing. How can a bowl of fish curry, however good, cost more than £24? Too eager to cater for weddings, car launches and Americans catching an early flight from nearby Heathrow, this is a hotel that needs to remember where it is.