In this post:
The Hotel
100 Queens Gate is a Curio Collection hotel by Hilton which means you can earn Hilton Honours points as well as spend them. You also get the usual benefits of being a status holder such as free breakfast. There are only 7 Curio Collection hotels in London which are all boutique hotels catered towards the higher-end market. See another of our Curio Collection reviews here.
100 Queens Gate was converted into a hotel from several townhouses and I have to say I love the stunning appearance from the front.
Hilton provided our stay to enable us to review this property.
Location
South Kensington is located in the upmarket Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is close to a lot of cultural activities such as Natural History Museum, Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Gardens to name a few. The whole area is buzzing with lots of independent restaurants, bars and markets.
South Kensington Tube Station is only a 5-minute walk away which is served by the Piccadilly, Circle & District lines which is ideal as these lines cover most of London from central, all the way to City and beyond.
Sure, there are closer hotels if you want to stay in central London, but they will be more than twice the price and won’t be in such a beautiful area.
Check-In
The hotel is very grand looking with its tall white pillars and long windows. Made even better by a very welcoming floral display both at the entrance and inside the front doors. It’s amazing how effective these are, and I do wonder why more hotels don’t dress their entrances and receptions.
We had an event in London to attend (Community Shield at Wembley where my team lost!) so we got to the hotel at 11:45 am that is a lot earlier than their 3 pm check-in time. We were met by the very friendly Thomas who welcomed us and explained that our room wasn’t quite ready, but it wouldn’t be long. This wasn’t a problem as we were planning to grab lunch in the hotel restaurant anyway. Thomas explained where everything was and offered to take our bags. He then showed us to the restaurant.
Cento Lunch
The entrance to Cento is just around the corner from reception and is an Italian restaurant that prides itself for serving traditional Italian cuisine.
A smiling Josh, the hotel’s Food & Beverage Manager, met us. As it was still early, we were the only two in the restaurant and Josh showed us to a lovely table in the window. Josh is from South Africa, which is our favourite country, so we took up a lot of his time talking about all the amazing places we have all been. I mentioned that I’ve never had a traditional Braai which Josh promised to correct. I’ll hold him to that!
Seeing as we had dinner booked elsewhere in the evening, we wanted a fairly light lunch. Josh then introduced us to his colleague, Deluxy, the Food & Beverage Supervisor who looked after us. She started immediately by opening a beautiful bottle of Barolo Enrico Serafino Piedmont red wine.
She then explained the menu and offered a few recommendations, such as Nonna’s Scarpetta and the Burrata. We took her up on both of these suggestions and on top of that we added Branzino and a Classic Pinsa Romana (Pizza).
After a short wait the starters arrived and Deluxy was right, Nonna’s Scarpetta was great. She suggested just ripping the bread and dipping away, so we did!
The Branzino which is a favourite of mine was cooked and seasoned perfectly. Katrina really enjoyed her pizza however it was a bit big for her, so I did the right thing and helped her out!
Feeling pretty full we skipped dessert however Deluxy wouldn’t let us go without trying the hotel’s ice cream partners Buontalenti Pistachio. I have tried pistachio outside of Italy quite a lot and am almost always disappointed. They are usually an odd colour and taste like perfume. I am pleased to say this one was incredible and I wish I had room for more.
It’s worth noting that Cento is the hotel’s main restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, the toilets are really far away and to get to them you have to navigate multiple bends and even a flight of stairs. It would be great if they could find space to put them more conveniently located. Especially as they could serve as reception toilets too.
10 minutes before the end of our lunch Thomas appeared and hand-delivered our room cards to us, which was great as we were short on time so at least we could go straight to the room. It’s the little touches that make such a difference.
The Room
We were in room 308 which was a Superior room that had two large windows overlooking the entrance of the hotel and the main road. We heard zero road noise which was great.
We walked into the room where our bags were waiting for us and a lovely bottle of Laurent Perrier, three macaroons, a fruit plate and a handwritten welcome note. In a rush and after just saying we had no room for dessert we dug deep and found space for the macaroons. The room was of an expected size for London, if not a tad bigger.
The usual suspects were in the room, iron and ironing board, safe and a mini fridge along with really cool retro phones.
The room had plenty of plug sockets which all included USB A ports and a large TV in front of the bed. We had a small seating area, and a desk should we needed to do any work.
Unfortunately, the bathroom was on the very small side. Totally functional but small. It also didn’t look like it had been renovated like the pictures on their website suggest when looking at other room categories. It had a bath with stand in shower and had Molten Brown toiletries. The shampoo and body wash were in large containers fixed to the walls which I much prefer than those fiddly little bottles you can never open when your hands are wet. It’s also a plus point for me from an environmental side.
ESQ Bar
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. It was only 9 pm so popped down the fancy stairs to ESQ Bar which is located right next to reception.
As with all our other interactions so far, we were met by a friendly member of the team who showed us to a table and took our orders. We both opted for a Dark & Stormy that was made perfectly and exactly what we wanted.
Being underground it was a very cosy space. The ambience was perfect for relaxing and talking with family or friends. They offer a “small plates” menu which we didn’t sample as we had just finished dinner. Again, not enough to stop me from eating the three bowels of popcorn they brought over with the drinks.
Cento Breakfast
As mentioned earlier, breakfast is served in the Cento restaurant. The offering is a pretty comprehensive buffet with all the usuals such as pastries, cheese and meats plus everything you’ll need to make a full English.
You can order specific types of eggs however there are no A La Carte options which I found a little strange given that the hotel appears to be busy and is targeted towards the higher end. Not to mention on their room service menu they offer breakfast plates such as avocado on toast and pancakes.
I would have loved the ability to review my usual Eggs Benedict, but it wasn’t meant to be this time.
Even so, the staff as always were on point. Katrina ordered a coffee and after a few nibbles we were full and on our way.
Other Facilities
Gym – As far as hotel gyms go this one looked great. We didn’t try it out but did spend some time in there having a look around for review purposes and as avid gym goers ourselves it was refreshing to finally see a decent gym. Sure, the space is compact, but they have done everything they could to maximise the space.
It has a nice stretching area, plenty of cardio machines including a Peloton and to my surprise a stack of dumbbells which go up to 30kg. Again, very rare for a hotel gym.
Botanica – Based next to Cento and located in a conservatory style space which exclusively serves afternoon tea. It truly is beautifully done and whilst we didn’t try it out, I can see why it was busy whilst we were there. I can see the hotel regularly offer discounts to try this out and if afternoon tea is your thing, I would recommend giving this a go, for the setting more than anything else.
Gelato – 100 Queens Gate has teamed up with Badiana, an award-winning Gelato maker named after their creator. A quick note to say that you must try this if you stay. They have a pop-up in reception and the flavour is amazing.
Summary
We really enjoyed our stay at 100 Queens Gate. The whole team were true professionals and are a credit to the hotel.
The room we had was great for a one-night stay and the facilities offered were more than we needed.
I note some of the rooms don’t have windows so when booking you’ll need to watch out for that, and the location is a little further out than we would normally book but I am glad we stayed here because it has opened our eyes that we don’t necessarily need to be super central.
You can book from only 60,000 Hilton Honours points but equally we found when looking that the cash price was very reasonable for a great quality London hotel.
