3am
There’s hardly a soul about in Mayfair and the streets are inky-dark. Halfway down Brook’s Mews, however, the lights are about to come on. One of London’s top floral wholesalers is pulling up in a van outside Claridge’s Flowers, which, as well as selling bouquets, creates all the arrangements for the hotel. The vehicle is laden with seasonal blooms, including bunches of British-grown irises and dahlias. So long-established is the relationship that the florists have their own key.
4am
Two doors down, the Claridge’s Bakery is coming to life. ‘We’re working with something alive, so you’re constantly having to adapt to things like the weather,’ says head baker Fred Doncel-Latorre, who has been up since 2.30am, as he refreshes the hotel’s sourdough starter. Boules are rising in a giant steam-oven heated to 260ºC, which can take 40 loaves at a time (the hotel gets through 100 per day).
Meanwhile, 50 of the 300 croissants required for breakfast are baking in a kind of glass-fronted walk-in wardrobe, wafting a heavenly scent. Around the corner, the dough for tomorrow’s pastries is being laminated with butter; three days’ work goes into each croissant.
5am
In 1812, there were two hotels on Brook Street: Mivart’s and a second, belonging to William and Marianne Claridge. The Claridges bought Mivart’s in 1854 and, in 1860, their hotel hit the headlines when the Empress Eugenie, one of history’s first brand ambassadors (for Louis Vuitton), entertained Queen Victoria there. Today, with guests flying in from all over the world, it’s a 24-hour operation, but, in as much as there’s ever a lull, it’s now. Reception is still quiet, apart from the tinkle of cutlery being set out for breakfast in The Foyer and a pianist practising for teatime. This is a good time for maintenance; on the landing, a gilt picture frame is being painstakingly touched up with a tiny brush.
6am
Plenty of people staying here still want a good, old-fashioned newspaper delivered to their door before breakfast: the concierges drop off between 150 and 180 every morning along the hotel’s 2½ miles of corridors. International guests ask for the news from home, even now that they can read it on their phones; The New York Times is popular despite being a day behind, as the copies are flown over on publication day.
7am
Breakfast is served in The Foyer, with its intricate mirrors and plush curvilinear chairs. It’s a best-of-British hit parade — Cacklebean eggs from the Cotswolds, smoked salmon from the Severn & Wye smokery, Stornoway’s finest black pudding — but I spot everything from waffles to a charcuterie plate. My eye is caught by the ‘Japanese breakfast’, with rolled omelette, miso soup, pickles and green tea.
'With 269 rooms and suites to look after, housekeeping is an around-the-clock endeavour'
8am
Guests who have landed in London on red-eye flights are beginning to arrive, their suitcases discreetly whisked upstairs. They themselves will travel to their rooms in one of London’s oldest lifts, which still has the dial over the door and a sofa inside. Trolleys glide along unobtrusively: with 269 rooms and suites to look after, housekeeping is an around-the-clock endeavour.
9am
Is Claridge’s ladies powder room London’s best-preserved Art Deco space? The burnished woodwork, flattering mirrors and comfy chairs also invite indiscretion; the last time I was in here, I overheard an incredible piece of celebrity gossip. Outside in the lobby is one of the magnificent seasonal arrangements for which the hotel has been famous since 1859, when floristry was brought in house. ‘We’re part of the theatre,’ Claridge’s Flowers CEO Richard Eagleton tells me.
10am
Hero is 27 and she comes to Claridge’s once a week to sit on the roof. She has deep-brown eyes and is, in case you hadn’t already guessed, a Harris hawk. ‘She scares away pigeons and gulls, which can play havoc with the exterior of the building and its air-conditioning units,’ says Phil Huzzey, with whom Hero lives and who has been working with Claridge’s for 12 years.
11am
While I’m up here, I jump at the opportunity to have a look around the extraordinarily opulent, 11,840sq ft penthouse, which takes up the entire ninth floor, with general manager Thomas Kochs. Built in 2023, it has its own swimming pool, a private gym and 360-degree views of the city (the bespoke sofas move on tracks to capitalise on this). I think it would have won over even Sir Winston Churchill, who, when he and his wife took over the then sixth-floor penthouse, complained about being so high up (he did, however, make sure that the hotel’s railings were never melted down for the war effort).
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12 noon
Back downstairs, lunch is already in full swing. ‘A hotel is always judged on its club sandwich,’ culinary director Simon Attridge tells me — and I spot several winding their way to tables, alongside Caesar salads and seafood cocktails (if you really want to push the boat out, there’s a lobster Wellington for two). Employees dine at Muse, the staff restaurant, which is run by the same team and uses exactly the same suppliers. Unlike many hotels, which are notably stingy when it comes to staff meals, the offering is unlimited and, I gather, is one of the reasons so many people have stayed for so long.
1pm
As well as handling some 1,600 staff uniforms and all the laundry from guests (some of whom travel with their own bedding and bed linen), the linen room deals with monogramming and personalisation requests for everything from dressing gowns to teddy bears; often initials, but recently the Crystal Palace FC crest. Overseeing everything is seamstress Afkar Ismail, known to all as Fifi, who arrived 24 years ago after stints with Liberty, Amanda Wakeley and Jaeger. ‘My husband asked me why I wanted to work in a hotel, but as soon as I came here it felt like family,’ she says. Her dedication is extraordinary; she recently stayed late into the night to alter a guest’s wedding dress.
2pm
A few floors further down is the spa, which, in a crowded field, must be one of London’s most luxurious. The pale-pink marble and concentric wooden circles on the ceiling of the sauna hark back to Art Deco, but the state-of-the-art heated pool is infused with electrolytes so you bob around as if you’re in the Dead Sea. The team kindly fits me in for a massage, which is so soothing that I fall asleep and wake myself up by snoring.
3pm
The words ‘hotel business centre’ are normally a heart-sinker, but, at Claridge’s, guests with work to do can sequester themselves in the handsome Map Room, named for the walnut marquetry one inlaid in a wall. A tray of freshly baked madeleines arrives on the dot of 3pm.
This is only the tip of the teatime iceberg: downstairs in the kitchen, I find executive pastry chef Thibault Hauchard scrutinising miniature pineapple-and-lime sables. ‘I’ve never known a hotel like this in terms of attention to detail,’ he says. A high-tech tempering machine works its magic on 40lb of chocolate and a sous chef is painstakingly microplaning the base of meringue nests, which will become peach and lemon-verbena pavlovas, so they sit flat.
4pm
Patisserie is flying off the pass — guests enjoy some 300,000 cakes each year — together with perfect, crustless sandwiches. These are overseen by an industry legend: Volodymr Tokaryk. Nobody seems to know exactly how long he’s been working for the hotel (‘28 years? No, 31…’), but he is estimated to have made more than a million sandwiches in his time, each measuring precisely 10cm by 2½cm. Yes, there’s a special ruler.
5pm
On the first floor, in a wood-panelled office like a ship’s cabin, I find Kate Hudson, hotel archivist. Since 2007, she has been the custodian of Claridge’s history and one of her favourite parts of the job is scouring auctions for its promotional fans, dance cards and luggage labels: ‘I’m permanently on the lookout.’ She shows me issues of Country Life that covered the then-new 1920s interiors; our anonymous diarist, Mademoiselle Sans-Gêne (‘Without Restraint’), also reported on a ‘soul-satisfying’ dinner there in the April 1, 1899, issue. A woman after my own heart.
6pm
The black-and-white chequerboard floor of the lobby is full of visitors arriving for dinners and drinks parties. There are events in the hotel every night of the week, including weddings. No two are alike: Attridge recently devised a Caribbean menu for one couple and another celebration saw a late-night outing for the Claridge’s burger trolley, laden with individually foil-wrapped burgers and fries. This year’s Christmas lunch has already been finalised, but not everyone wants turkey. ‘You’d be amazed by the number of people who want a pizza,’ he laughs.
7pm
Ada Coleman, who supplied the Bright Young Things with their Hanky Pankys, began her bartending career at Claridge’s (‘It was a Manhattan that I made first… it was Fisher, the wine butler, who gave me my first lesson,’ she once said). Her spirit lives on in the hotel’s three bars, but oenophiles will have their heads turned by the wine-tasting room, temperature-controlled home to some 800 bottles. There are almost double that number in the hotel at large: for the first and almost certainly last time in my life, I find myself inches away from a bottle of Château Pétrus.
'I’m trying to pace myself, but someone I know was moved to attempt a five-martini dinner here recently'
8pm
For a long time, the Ballroom was Claridge’s see-and-be-seen spot: it was here that this very magazine held a star-spangled party to mark the then Duchess of Cornwall’s turn as Guest Editor. Today, the celeb-magnet is Dante, an outpost of the famous New York restaurant, which began as a pop-up, but was so popular it became permanent. Every table is packed on a mid-week evening and shrimp cocktails, steaks and flambéed sticky-toffee doughnuts are flying out of the kitchen. I’m trying to pace myself, but someone I know was moved to attempt a five-martini dinner here recently.
9pm
Outside on Brook Street, doormen direct black cabs like orchestra conductors. Among them is Craig Debell, who has been with the hotel for 13 years. He and his colleagues take great pride in being the ‘face’ of the hotel. ‘First impressions last,’ he remarks simply. He spends 12 hours a day out here in all weathers — ‘the trick is good insoles’.
10pm
The cigars are long gone, but The Fumoir, Claridge’s smallest bar, has kept its dark good looks and Lalique glass panelling. The director of bars, George Raju, recently obtained an extremely rare 1930s bottle of vermouth. He uncorks it for a very special vodka martini that comes with a pot of caviar on the side and goes down with dangerous ease. (‘Try not to end up in the duty manager’s log book,’ a Claridge’s regular warned me when I said I was having a drink here.)
11pm
Service may be winding down in the restaurants, but in the kitchen the night team is only just getting started. As well as prepping for breakfast, the staff are in charge of the room-service menu, which leans towards home comforts: roasted tomato soup with a cheese toastie, spaghetti bolognese, apple crumble. Some guests are staying here for a long time, after all.
Midnight
Most of its guests might be in bed by now, but Claridge’s never sleeps. One hundred and twenty feet below the ground floor, on a level with parts of the Underground, is the plant room, the hotel’s nerve centre. Excavating the space was a multi-year project and involved a team of miners hand-digging tunnels through London clay; incredibly, the hotel remained fully operational throughout. The pipes for hot and cold water and gas are all colour coded and the space is strikingly clean and tidy. This is the nicest boiler room I’ve ever been in, I tell Mihai Toma, director of engineering, who is showing me around and he tilts his head as if to say: ‘Of course.’
1am
Making my way back upstairs, I pass a wall of watercolours of notable visitors, including The King. ‘Claridge’s is Claridge’s and everywhere else is everywhere else,’ once said the artist behind them, David Downton. In a few hours, I will be reluctantly returning to the latter — but, right now, one of the cloud-like beds upstairs is calling me…