Review: The Berkeley

Behind its sandstone façade, The Berkeley has long attracted well-heeled, well-dressed clients from the overlapping worlds of business and fashion. There’s a wildly popular couture-themed afternoon tea, and the Lutyens-inspired Blue Bar positively throbs every evening (and mixes top-notch cocktails). In late 2016, the hotel’s dignified but bland 1970s face was given a startling lift by one of the world’s most prominent architects, Richard Rogers of Pompidou Center fame. For some, the glass and steel canopied entrance may evoke an airport, but it leads to beautified public areas, bars, and cafés that are more spacious and inviting than ever, thanks to the designer Robert Angell.

The Berkeley’s rooms—including vast suites with Hyde-Park-view terraces —have been re-thought too, and not with a mere coat of paint and some new furniture. The architect John Heah has already made his mark on a number of rooms, achieving calm elegance with a witty use of geometric themes (such as variations on the meeting of rectangles and circles), fine materials, and muted colors. But what remains untouched is part of what makes The Berkeley special: the glorious rooftop swimming pool (open to the sky on nice days), the ultra-relaxing Bamford Haybarn spa, and Marcus Wareing’s fine two-Michelin-star restaurant. Also unchanged are the environs, across the street from Hyde Park and a few minutes’ walk from the shopping bazaar that is Knightsbridge.