Luxury Hotel Stay In London: The May Fair

It’s not often we stay in a hotel that was inspected by actual, honest-to-god royalty. But sometimes, it just happens. You know, you casually check in to your beautiful boutique hotel, the May Fair Hotel, in London and then, spot a sign on the wall:

On March 22nd 1927 Their Majesties The King and Queen visited the May Fair Hotel and were graciously pleased to make a tour of inspection.

Doesn’t that make the best TripAdvisor review ever, by the way? “Graciously pleased! Yours truly, The King and Queen”!

*gasps!* We’ve stayed in a royal sort of hotel!

After surviving that first bit of awe, we made our way to our room through the beautiful lobby decorated with paintings, eccentric light fixtures and artwork of many sorts.

Welcome to the May Fair Hotel in London!

Spacious hotel rooms in London: impossible to find?

Wherever we stay in London, we usually expect the rooms to be the size of a cupboard. Seriously. More than once, the floor space in a shared room has been so small that we could barely fit our luggage opened up in there.

But along with the words “boutique” and “luxury” might just come a thing called “living space”. With that, we got lucky: we did share a room again, but it had enough room for both our massive bags, plenty of space for getting dressed and maybe even do a little happydance after meeting our idols at the stage doors of West End.

The bloggers have arrived!

The more time we spent in the hotel, going back and forth on to our adventures and breakfast, the more details we kept noticing. Pretty flowers and vases, more ornate lamps and statues and generally just very pleasing to the eye shapes and tones. Below you’ll see a few photos from these nice little things.

It’s usually the decoration that makes a hotel unique and helps it stand out among the hundred other ones nearby. Sure, one doesn’t necessarily need all this fancy stuff to make their hotel stay a good one, but it certainly adds to the character and creates a feeling of being pampered and special.

Whenever there’s a mirror, a blogger selfie is a must.

The film connection

We are sort of embarrassed to admit this, but we had no idea about the film industry connection The May Fair Hotel has, not until we actually checked in and noticed the signs: leaflets, fancy looking guests, signs here and there and finally, the big sponsor posters on Leicester Square during the opening ceremonies of the BFI London Film Festival.

Hold on, isn’t that the hotel we’re staying at?!

So, that night we snuck back in to the May Fair looking tired and… well, like a pair of travel bloggers who have been on the road for nearly a month, through several small groups of film festival people all dressed to the nines. That made us giggle, as we simultaneously felt like filmstars and then again, very out of place.

But it was ok. No-one actually even bat an eyelid, which just goes to prove how you don’t need to look fancy to live fancy in London.

Breakfast in The May Fair Kitchen

Ah, the May Fair breakfast! The sitting area was a tad tight, no doubt due to the film festival action, so we had to wait a moment as we didn’t want to be seated in the bar stools / high tables. Finally, our grumbling tummies were seated in their own little table on the side and we got to inspect what the breakfast tables had to offer.

The May Fair Kitchen, London: one of the best hotel breakfasts ever!

On top of all the basics (beans, toast, croissants, scrambled eggs) the May Fair Kitchen brought to the table a delightful set of all things Italian: ham, cheese, coffee, little unique flavours here and there to add to the normal stuff one needs to get their day properly started.

As an appreciator of Great Flavors, I came up with something I will dearly miss for the years to come, unless of course I manage to find all the ingredients in the Finnish shops. I will gladly now share the recipe with all of you. I call it… the Fantastic Focaccia!

It’s fairly simple, but sadly, I have forgotten the name of the ham. It’s not any of the obvious ones (prosciutto etc.), but something very similar. But, I suspect any Italian dry-cured ham will do the trick.

But anyway, the Fantastic Focaccia is quite easy to put together, especially if you happen to be sitting in a buffet with all the ingredients. Here’s what to do: take a piece of delicious, oven-fresh focaccia, spread a little butter and Brie or Camembert cheese on top. Add a good chunk of real guacamole made out of avocados, lime and chili, then sprinkle a little pepper on top. Cover the whole thing with a slice of dry-cured Italian ham.

Voilà! There you have it: one of my all time favorite flavor combinations.

So the next time you’re looking for a little luxury in London, or perhaps just a really tasty breakfast, you might want to check out the May Fair. We, as budget travelers, wouldn’t probably be able to stay for a full week, but believe it when we say: it makes a big difference to spend at least a night or two in a nice place like this every now and then, especially on special occasions. It will definitely make your trip feel even more special that it already is!

This is a collaboration post: Our stay at The May Fair Hotel was complimentary for review reasons, but the content (including photos, opinions and the experience itself) are 100% our own. We keep it honest at all times. One simply can not buy our love! ⭐️