Claridge's has stood on the corner of Brook Street and Davies Street since 1856, when William and Marianne Claridge put their name over the door. The building you walk into now went up in 1898 to a design by C. W. Stephens, commissioned by Richard D'Oyly Carte of the Savoy, and the art deco arrived with Rupert D'Oyly Carte's extension in the 1920s. The freehold went to Regis Maybourne in the Qatari owners' August 2026 split of the group, and Maybourne still runs the hotel. Between 2016 and 2021 it grew two floors upward under a new roof and five levels down into the London clay.
What separates the room categories is square metres and which way you look. A Superior Room is 35 square metres and faces the courtyard. A Mayfair Room is 40 and faces it too. The Mayfair Balcony Room is 45 and the first category sold with a balcony, over Brook Street, Davies Street or Brook's Mews, and the Claridge's Room and Claridge's Balcony Room carry that to 50 and 55. Rooms come in a traditional style with gilded cornices or in art deco. The hotel publishes no room total. Downstairs the Foyer holds a Chihuly glass sculpture, the art deco ballroom and French Salon came back in the recent works, and a different designer builds the Christmas tree every December.
Claridge's Spa opened in September 2022, the first in the hotel's history, 7,000 square feet by Andre Fu three floors below the lobby with a pool, sauna, steam rooms and seven treatment rooms. The dining room has turned over twice since Daniel Humm closed Davies and Brook at the end of 2021. Claridge's Restaurant served its last guests on 10 May 2026, and Dante Mayfair opened that June, run by Linden Pride and Nathalie Hudson of Dante in Greenwich Village, named the world's best bar in 2019. Afternoon tea in the Foyer starts at 95 pounds. The bars are Claridge's Bar, The Fumoir, going since 1929, and The Painter's Room.
The trade-off is the kitchen. Claridge's has housed three starred restaurants in its time and holds no star in the 2026 guide, and if dinner downstairs decides it for you, The Connaught and The Dorchester are a short walk away with three stars each. Dante is a New York import rather than a destination tasting menu. The entry Superior faces the courtyard, which guests report as the side that catches noise, and reviewers call the pool small and the gym modest for the money. Rates start near 750 pounds in January and roughly double by June. It suits anyone who wants the art deco building with a serious spa under it, and who intends to eat out.
