A bit of an intermission here – I had planned to revisit the property in my trip to the UK but as luck would have it, I ended up staying at the Conrad all the way this time round. Still, I really enjoyed my stay here back in July and thought I’d leave a mini-review here to highlight a more affordable option for accommodation in London (they share the same owner, anyway).
I’d picked the London Bankside as it’s a relatively new property (think it was ready in end 2015) and I’d read quite a bit of good stuff about it. The first sign that I was in for a treat was when I entered the hotel lobby.
Other than the fresh modern decor, the front desk officer who assisted with check in was great – I’d actually made two separate consecutive bookings as I wasn’t too sure about my arrival date. When checking in, I was pleased that they had already taken note of it and had arranged for the same room to be used throughout the stay.
The rooms weren’t all that large (I was upgraded to a double deluxe), but also very fresh and modern. Nice to have a proper HDTV in the room, though I wish they allowed us to plug in our own devices via HDMI (I suppose they still want guests to make use of their pay-per-view options).
We had breakfast at their restaurant (OXBO, which is ranked at about 130 of 17k restaurants on Tripadvisor, as of today). We never actually had meals there other than breakfast, but that was excellent with a good spread (I loved their fruit custard pastries and honey-roasted granola). Much of the hot food offered was the standard English breakfast fare, but it was of pretty good quality.
The lounge was also a very comfortable one. Food offerings at tea/drinks time aren’t quite as extensive as those offered in Asia, but enough for a light snack (we were often stuffed from lunch so that worked out well).
All in all, I think this is possibly the best Hilton-branded property I’ve ever stayed at (outshining perhaps some Conrads). The location was perhaps not so ideal for us (some distance from Southwark station and not so convenient for travelling to, say, the Covent Garden area), but all things considered it was a great stay.
