Chiltern Firehouse hotel, Marylebone, London: review
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Chiltern Firehouse is a Marylebone hotel offering charmingly retro interiors, polished service, excellent breakfasts and a Nuno Mendes restaurant popular with the likes of Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss, David Beckham and Kylie Minogue.
Who goes?
Media and entertainment, darling. The more ornamental and frivolous types can be seen in the restaurant; guests of the hotel tend to be at the top of their professions, and interesting, many American.
Location
Housed in a fire station dating from 1887, the building has huge charm. The street on which Chiltern Firehouse stands has been recently regenerated street and is now lined with interesting shops. Happily the traditional barber’s shop and the newsagent opposite have not been swept away, thanks to the help of Chiltern Firehouse owner André Balazs, also known for the Mercer and Château Marmont
Style/character
The original façade has been restored and the former ladder shed is now the guest lobby; the engine house holds the restaurant, with bedrooms above; and the newly constructed extension in between holds the horseshoe-shaped bar and a courtyard for outdoor seating. The whole is compact, but it works. The comfort and happiness of the guests have been given impressive thought and you feel it the moment you are ushered in by doormen straight from central casting (head doorman Matt McClure really is also an actor). The interiors, by Paris-based Studio KO, are timeless, homely, stylish, vintage and glamorous. You won't want to leave. Humour is there too: in the Ladies, ‘Cigarettes and Men’ is scrawled lipstick-style on a glass door; open it and you are in a cute smoking area.
Service
Superb: friendly, polished, relaxed, swift – just how we like it today. General Manager Guillaume Marly has the Ritz and Claridges behind him and has assembled an impressive team. Simplicity and directness is the key: no directories for ‘housekeeping’, ‘room service’, ‘reception’ etc; instead, a handwritten note by the bedroom telephone: “Dial 0 for everything”. Mind you, I’d still like area information in the room, currently missing. Perhaps a quirky, instructive, amusingly illustrated booklet that guests could keep as a memento of their stay.
Rooms
As is so often the case these days, all the rooms are decorated the same. However, at the Chiltern Firehouse, their decoration is so charmingly retro, sensible and domestic, yet stylish and original, that it matters far less than in other hotels. Looks and comfort wise, rooms are impossible to fault.
Food & drink
The hullaballoo that accompanied Nuno Mendes’s arrival has died down; he will doubtless soon open a separate gastronomic restaurant where he can practice his culinary wizardry; in the meantime the food on a monthly changing menu is delicious without being exceptional, and perfectly suited to the crowded, brasserie-style surroundings. Breakfast, from a basket of pastries to inventive cooked dishes, is excellent. The service, by accomplished waiters chosen for their personality, is brilliant. At times, the restaurant only just avoids being unbearably crowded.
Value for money
Doubles from £480 per night; breakfast from £10. Free Wi-Fi. Though superb, this neighbourhood hotel is also diminutive and feels very much as though it should be frequented by a wider group than simply the very wealthy who can afford its top whack prices. Ham Yard and Shoreditch House can offer rooms for a good deal less; so should this.
Family-friendly?
Yes.
Access for guests with disabilities?
Yes: lifts and one specially adapted room.
Read Fiona Duncan's review of Chiltern Firehouse in full
Forget all that celebrity rubbish. Who cares? Ordinary mortals may eat here because they want to pretend they are famous, but I’ve got a much better fantasy on the go. It’s the 1950s (or thereabouts) and I’m the young wife of the hunky chief fireman of the Chiltern Street Fire Station (built in 1887 and a Victorian Gothic delight). I’m at home in my cosy little flat above the firehouse, and I’m in domestic bliss.
Actually I’m in Room 14, the Firehouse Suite. So much has been written about the restaurant since it opened in February that it has been largely overlooked that the Chiltern Firehouse is also a 26-bedroom hotel. The twin feelings of domesticity and bliss emanate from a suite that has the charm and vintage styling of the modest firemen’s accommodation that it once was, yet is also part of a deeply luxurious hotel, its treats delivered solely with the happiness and comfort of the guest in mind, without pretension or complexity. The handwritten message on the notepad by the phone “Dial 0 for anything” says it all about the heavenly, if carefully crafted, simplicity.
Simple it may be, but believe me, this is a class act from a skilled hotelier, André Balazs , whose Standard Hotels as well as the Mercer and Château Marmont in the United States are all hugely successful. From the charming hand-painted bedroom number plates and the pretty café curtains to the easy-to-operate vintage-style switches and plug sockets (British, US and European); and from the gas log fires (in almost every bedroom) switched on and off by bell pulls to the hot water bottles at bedtime and the rugs on the marble floors of the glamorous yet homely bathrooms, this is a hotel, full of integrity and depth, that delivers a rare feeling of being in your own personal space.
It’s the details that count. I recently bemoaned the white plastic key cards that ruined the period atmosphere of the Beaumont hotel’s bedrooms. No such slip up here: a proper key, with a tassel. Hooray. Guillaume Marly , the inspired general manager, has headed the Connaught and the Ritz; with Balazs’s acknowledged brilliance at creating headline US hotels, the combination is a winner and the Firehouse manages to feel both exciting and grounded at the same time.
Lighting is crucial and Balazs knows it: he even recently equipped his daughter with a dimmer switch for her university dorm. Downstairs in the fire station’s former high ceilinged ladder shed the brilliant lighting is warm and flattering and the brick-walled, plant-filled room feels something between a conservatory and a furnished garage, with open fire, DJ deck, piano and fabulous horseshoe bar, gorgeous waitresses in crimson pant suits and charismatic host Juanito in charge. It has an atmosphere of relaxed, homely exclusivity and for anyone staying here it’s a huge plus (open for hotel guests or by invitation only from 9pm nightly).
As for the restaurant, it remains packed to the hydrants, the service is awesome, and Nuno Mendez’s regularly changing menu has settled to become highly enjoyable rather than epicurean, as befits the brasserie style setting. “This is not the place for gastronomy”, he tells me, “this is social cooking”.
I have a strong feeling of being in New York when I’m in the restaurant at the Chiltern Firehouse; but I’m that contented, domesticated London lady in its divine bedrooms, one who really doesn’t want to leave. I just wish they weren’t quite so expensive – too much for ordinary mortals.
Who goes?
Media and entertainment, darling. The more ornamental and frivolous types can be seen in the restaurant; guests of the hotel tend to be at the top of their professions, and interesting, many American.
Location
Housed in a fire station dating from 1887, the building has huge charm. The street on which Chiltern Firehouse stands has been recently regenerated street and is now lined with interesting shops. Happily the traditional barber’s shop and the newsagent opposite have not been swept away, thanks to the help of Chiltern Firehouse owner André Balazs, also known for the Mercer and Château Marmont
Style/character
The original façade has been restored and the former ladder shed is now the guest lobby; the engine house holds the restaurant, with bedrooms above; and the newly constructed extension in between holds the horseshoe-shaped bar and a courtyard for outdoor seating. The whole is compact, but it works. The comfort and happiness of the guests have been given impressive thought and you feel it the moment you are ushered in by doormen straight from central casting (head doorman Matt McClure really is also an actor). The interiors, by Paris-based Studio KO, are timeless, homely, stylish, vintage and glamorous. You won't want to leave. Humour is there too: in the Ladies, ‘Cigarettes and Men’ is scrawled lipstick-style on a glass door; open it and you are in a cute smoking area.
Service
Superb: friendly, polished, relaxed, swift – just how we like it today. General Manager Guillaume Marly has the Ritz and Claridges behind him and has assembled an impressive team. Simplicity and directness is the key: no directories for ‘housekeeping’, ‘room service’, ‘reception’ etc; instead, a handwritten note by the bedroom telephone: “Dial 0 for everything”. Mind you, I’d still like area information in the room, currently missing. Perhaps a quirky, instructive, amusingly illustrated booklet that guests could keep as a memento of their stay.
Rooms
As is so often the case these days, all the rooms are decorated the same. However, at the Chiltern Firehouse, their decoration is so charmingly retro, sensible and domestic, yet stylish and original, that it matters far less than in other hotels. Looks and comfort wise, rooms are impossible to fault.
Food & drink
The hullaballoo that accompanied Nuno Mendes’s arrival has died down; he will doubtless soon open a separate gastronomic restaurant where he can practice his culinary wizardry; in the meantime the food on a monthly changing menu is delicious without being exceptional, and perfectly suited to the crowded, brasserie-style surroundings. Breakfast, from a basket of pastries to inventive cooked dishes, is excellent. The service, by accomplished waiters chosen for their personality, is brilliant. At times, the restaurant only just avoids being unbearably crowded.
Value for money
Doubles from £480 per night; breakfast from £10. Free Wi-Fi. Though superb, this neighbourhood hotel is also diminutive and feels very much as though it should be frequented by a wider group than simply the very wealthy who can afford its top whack prices. Ham Yard and Shoreditch House can offer rooms for a good deal less; so should this.
Family-friendly?
Yes.
Access for guests with disabilities?
Yes: lifts and one specially adapted room.
Read Fiona Duncan's review of Chiltern Firehouse in full
Forget all that celebrity rubbish. Who cares? Ordinary mortals may eat here because they want to pretend they are famous, but I’ve got a much better fantasy on the go. It’s the 1950s (or thereabouts) and I’m the young wife of the hunky chief fireman of the Chiltern Street Fire Station (built in 1887 and a Victorian Gothic delight). I’m at home in my cosy little flat above the firehouse, and I’m in domestic bliss.
Actually I’m in Room 14, the Firehouse Suite. So much has been written about the restaurant since it opened in February that it has been largely overlooked that the Chiltern Firehouse is also a 26-bedroom hotel. The twin feelings of domesticity and bliss emanate from a suite that has the charm and vintage styling of the modest firemen’s accommodation that it once was, yet is also part of a deeply luxurious hotel, its treats delivered solely with the happiness and comfort of the guest in mind, without pretension or complexity. The handwritten message on the notepad by the phone “Dial 0 for anything” says it all about the heavenly, if carefully crafted, simplicity.
Simple it may be, but believe me, this is a class act from a skilled hotelier, André Balazs , whose Standard Hotels as well as the Mercer and Château Marmont in the United States are all hugely successful. From the charming hand-painted bedroom number plates and the pretty café curtains to the easy-to-operate vintage-style switches and plug sockets (British, US and European); and from the gas log fires (in almost every bedroom) switched on and off by bell pulls to the hot water bottles at bedtime and the rugs on the marble floors of the glamorous yet homely bathrooms, this is a hotel, full of integrity and depth, that delivers a rare feeling of being in your own personal space.
It’s the details that count. I recently bemoaned the white plastic key cards that ruined the period atmosphere of the Beaumont hotel’s bedrooms. No such slip up here: a proper key, with a tassel. Hooray. Guillaume Marly , the inspired general manager, has headed the Connaught and the Ritz; with Balazs’s acknowledged brilliance at creating headline US hotels, the combination is a winner and the Firehouse manages to feel both exciting and grounded at the same time.
Lighting is crucial and Balazs knows it: he even recently equipped his daughter with a dimmer switch for her university dorm. Downstairs in the fire station’s former high ceilinged ladder shed the brilliant lighting is warm and flattering and the brick-walled, plant-filled room feels something between a conservatory and a furnished garage, with open fire, DJ deck, piano and fabulous horseshoe bar, gorgeous waitresses in crimson pant suits and charismatic host Juanito in charge. It has an atmosphere of relaxed, homely exclusivity and for anyone staying here it’s a huge plus (open for hotel guests or by invitation only from 9pm nightly).
As for the restaurant, it remains packed to the hydrants, the service is awesome, and Nuno Mendez’s regularly changing menu has settled to become highly enjoyable rather than epicurean, as befits the brasserie style setting. “This is not the place for gastronomy”, he tells me, “this is social cooking”.
I have a strong feeling of being in New York when I’m in the restaurant at the Chiltern Firehouse; but I’m that contented, domesticated London lady in its divine bedrooms, one who really doesn’t want to leave. I just wish they weren’t quite so expensive – too much for ordinary mortals.
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