The Savoy: What It’s Like To Stay In The UK’s Most Famous Hotel

Some hotels are more than just places to stay. The Savoy in London is so famous, it’s a tourist attraction in its own right – with an extraordinary history, a starry list of former guests and three restaurants from Gordon Ramsay. Siobhan Grogan checks in.

Hotel Review: The Savoy, London

HISTORY

It’s obvious this is no ordinary hotel from the moment you arrive at The Savoy. The private road off The Strand that leads to the main entrance is the only one in Britain where traffic is allowed to drive on the right-hand side. Inside the grand Edwardian lobby with its top-hatted doormen, the sense of history is thrilling. The property was the first purpose-built deluxe hotel in Britain when it opened in 1889, the first to be completely lit by electric lights and the first to have an elevator, which is still in use today. You can almost feel the presence of the glitterati that have sashayed through its walnut revolving doors and across the glossy monochrome marble floor.

In the late 19th century, the hotel’s chef even invented peach melba and melba toast here for one of its first regular guests, renowned soprano Dame Nellie Melba – one dish, allegedly, for when she was on a diet, the other for when she was not. Since then, guests have included Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Claude Monet, the entire royal family and Charlie Chaplin, who stayed in The Savoy with his family for three months after learning he was due to be arrested upon his return to the US for supposed communist leanings. ‘We had huge crowds permanently around the building because he was a huge star,’ says the hotel’s in-house archivist Susan Scott. ‘After that, the family went to live in Switzerland for the rest of his life, but they still used to visit almost every year until he died.’

The Savoy’s service quickly became legendary. Over the years, the hotel has flooded a courtyard to make it resemble the Grand Canal of Venice for the birthday party of American businessman George A Kessler in 1905 (complete with an elephant from London Zoo dragging in a five-foot-high birthday cake), installed soundproof padding whenever Louis Armstrong stayed so he could practice his trumpet and added a kitchenette in Pavarotti’s suite because he liked to cook his own pasta. ‘He did go into the restaurant, but he would get a lot of attention,’ Scott says. ‘He wanted to feel like he was at home.’ The Beatles, Scott adds, simply made up their own room service menu instead. ‘They came to visit Bob Dylan because he was staying with us while he was in London and they ordered something really weird like pease pudding sandwiches from in-room dining which wasn’t normally on the menu. Actually, while he was staying here, Bob Dylan created what’s considered to be the first music video which was filmed just outside on the pavement by the chapel next door.’

STAY

Despite its staggering history, The Savoy still doesn’t trade on past glories. It closed for almost three years in 2007 for a £220 million top-to-toe renovation, and now has a high-end spa with a swimming pool in a light-filled atrium that attracts the likes of Rihanna and Taylor Swift (who filmed some of her ‘End Game’ video in the hotel). Last year, it unveiled a new florist boutique and a scone shop, Scoff, in the lobby, which sells freshly-made scones every day from exactly 12.04pm until they sell out. And more recently in 2025, it was awarded a Green Key UK Certification for its sustainability practices which include using carbon footprint labelling on its menu, purchasing 100 percent of the hotel’s energy via renewable energy sources, using an AI food waste monitoring system and sending zero waste to landfill.

This summer, The Savoy revealed its first fully refurbished rooms, with all 267 due to be completed by 2027. The new one-bedroom river view suite is one of the most elegant rooms I’ve ever stayed in, with a glamorous Art Deco feel from its dark wooden parquet floor, curved furniture, pale greys and mini bar stocked with pre-mixed cocktails, martini glasses and a Savoy cocktail recipe book. It has a fireplace, a freestanding clawfoot bath (with Penhaligon’s products) and a wide windowsill big enough to sit watching boats chugging up the Thames past Big Ben and the London Eye. The refit means the rooms are bang up to date too, with Dyson hairdryers, bedside wireless charging points and Savoy yoga mats.

EAT

Take your pick. Afternoon tea has been served here since 1889 or plan ahead and book one of three not-very-snappily-named Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, Savoy Grill by Gordon Ramsay for classic dishes and steak, The River Restaurant by Gordon Ramsay for seafood and a raw bar or the Michelin-starred Restaurant 1890 by Gordon Ramsay, which serves a fine-dining menu to just 26 guests. If you’re not as organised, head for a drink in the American Bar, the longest surviving cocktail bar in London, then amble into the hotel’s newest restaurant, Gallery, which opened last November just off the lobby. A chic Art Deco space with curved banquettes, a stained-glass dome skylight and gold-embossed mirrors, the restaurant has a menu full of locally sourced dishes from English pea tortellini with wilted Yorkshire spinach, Cornish lobster rolls and Blackwater estuary oysters to British cheese with Thames honey.

THE FINAL WORD

For a truly special stay that will make you feel like an A-lister for one night only, it’s hard to beat the original grand dame of London hotels.

BOOK IT

Rooms start from £800 per night, including breakfast. thesavoylondon.com