"The hotel looks impressive from the outside. Unfortunately, that is more or less where the five-star experience ends.
Check-in set the tone immediately. I was told virtually nothing about the hotel — no explanation of breakfast, Wi-Fi, dining, facilities or amenities, and no acknowledgement of my status or any discussion of an upgrade. For a property marketing itself as five-star, the welcome was remarkably indifferent. It felt more like checking into a basic business hotel than a luxury London property.
Travelling with luggage? Don’t expect a porter. There doesn’t appear to be one.
Then there is the room.
I’m staying in a suite, so I don’t think expecting the basic facilities to actually work is setting the bar particularly high.
The television’s cable channels do not work at all — every channel simply shows “no signal”.
The air-conditioning system is an extremely dated Sanyo unit (which they stopped producing 15 years ago) and unfortunately feels every bit its age. The room is uncomfortably warm. The hotel’s solution was to provide a very loud, battered-looking portable fan.
Five-star luxury yet?
The refrigerator contained two bottles of water. Both were visibly dirty around the neck, with old water marks and staining. Again, hardly the meticulous attention to detail one associates with a five-star hotel.
The shower is another interesting experience. The temperature controls operate in reverse: turn the control towards hot and the water gets cold; turn it towards cold and it gets hot.
Delightful.
Despite the suite having an almost comical abundance of wardrobes, cupboards and storage space, there is not an iron, ironing board or clothes steamer anywhere to be found. As someone who travels frequently for business, I genuinely cannot remember the last time I stayed in a supposedly five-star hotel — or, frankly, many four-star hotels — where something so basic wasn't provided.
After all of this, I thought I would at least have a drink and try the Assembly Lounge.
I called reception beforehand and then went to visit. I sat there for around 20 minutes in complete silence. No music. No atmosphere. More importantly, no member of staff came over to greet me, take an order or even acknowledge that I was there.
Eventually, I had to leave the lounge myself and go looking for someone so that I could order a glass of wine.
The wine list offered a grand total of three white wines by the glass, which is fairly underwhelming for a hotel presenting itself as a five-star London property.
Having finally managed to order, I was then left sitting there again. No engagement. No check-in. No offer of another drink.
Eventually I gave up, returned to my room and started looking for wine bars elsewhere.
When the guest has to leave the hotel in search of somewhere willing to sell them a second glass of wine, something has gone rather wrong with the concept of five-star hospitality.
And that really sums up Town Hall Hotel so far: a beautiful building trading very heavily on its appearance and five-star designation, while delivering service, maintenance and attention to detail that fall dramatically short of what that designation suggests.
I’m a frequent business traveller to London and have stayed in a wide range of hotels across the city. I don't expect perfection, and any hotel can have the occasional maintenance issue. But this isn't one isolated problem. It is the accumulation of them: broken television channels, ineffective air conditioning, a battered fan, dirty water bottles, incorrectly marked shower controls, missing basic room amenities, virtually no introduction to the hotel at check-in and staff apparently absent when you actually try to use one of its bars.
At this price point, that simply isn't good enough.
I still have a couple of days remaining here, so there is time for the hotel to turn the experience around. At the moment, however, I am genuinely struggling to identify what about the actual guest experience justifies five stars.
The building looks the part.
Unfortunately, five-star hospitality requires rather more than a beautiful façade."
