St Martins Lane - London, United Kingdom 

I booked this hotel for my boyfriend's birthday weekend and we both absolutely loved it. It's a very 'cool' hotel inside, decor etc but the staff were great. Reception was buzzing, the staff were very friendly, not snooty at all and very helpful about local places to eat. The food in Asia de Cuba was stunning although shockingly expensive and the bar next door did great cocktails. My only complaint would be with the size of the room we had. We booked the cheapest/standard double room which consisted of a double bed and about a metre of space around it to walk, besides the bathroom and the entrance. However, we loved it so much that we would definitely recommend it but if you like your space go for one of the larger more expensive rooms.

I had extremely high expections from our stay especially as we were treating my parents to a stay in the hotel as well as a trip to the theatre. Initially service was excellent and attentive. The hotel is very minimalist and 'sophisticated' but most of the effort has gone into the public areas as the bedrooms were sterile and cramped - painting everything white isn't enough to be 'cool'. The interactive lighting enabling you to 'light your mood' is a joke. it feels like there is simply a different coloured light bulb behind the bedhead - hardly mood enhancing. But hey this is central London. Both of our rooms were so small you will be forgiven for not having cool Philippe Starck furniture. Service in the bar / restaurant was appaulingly bad. We simply wanted to have coffees before venturing out but it took ages to get anyone's attention and then were charged something like ?5 a coffee. Rip off. And not even a smile. Breakfast in the morning was the next rip off. It was included in our room rate but my mother did not want a full breakfast, but simply some scrambled eggs. Even though this was cheaper off the a la carte menu than a full breakfast, we were told we would have to pay - so about ?30 for eggs. The rest of the breakfast was over cooked, cold and just plainly not good enough. The final straw was that apparently my father took the 'urban beats' CD from their room. This is my father who would prefer to listen to a brass band. This was charged to me after we left and i was notified by a letter of this. I did check with my dad just in case he picked this up by mistake, which I doubted he had as they had commented that they daren't touch anything in the room as everything was charged extra! So this was clearly a mistake by the hotel so simply called them to sort it out. 5 calls later, even leaving messages for the manager, head of house keeping etc, no one could be bothered to call me back. Having spent over ?800 for one night and two rooms, coffee, breakfast etc, a call back would have been appreciated. But, hey, they already have my money so why do they care? Next time I will stay in my tried and trusted hotels like the Covent Garden Hotel or One Aldwych. There they understand value and service. SML - the abbreviations on their merchandise clearly stands for Small service, but should be replaced with XXL prices! Jake - Leamington Spa