Chancery Rosewood London review: Is a $3000-a-night converted embassy worth the hype?

Walking through the hallways of the new Chancery Rosewood, you can smell the expense. There isn’t a scented candle in existence to rival the experience.

Much has been said about this being a conversion of the old Eero Saarinen-designed American Embassy. In reality it’s a 99 per cent $2 billion new-build behind the original Grade II-listed mid-century modern façade.

I walked past the place for years during construction and could see straight through the original windows into the nothingness of the building site. But there was no other way to double the floor space.

Rosewood wanted to create the best hotel of its kind in the city, something that represents perfection for the one per cent. You can check in and check out whenever you like and a car is supplied for arrival and departure.

It’s been an instant success. You can rarely get a suite here for under $3000 a night (there’s nothing as common as a standard room), but it’s still consistently sold out, with three or five-night minimum bookings often highlighted on the website.

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Some of the bigger “houses” cost more than $30,000 a night.

Rosewood spent a lot, and people are spending a lot to visit. Is it worth it? If you aren’t at home in flashy 2020s Mayfair, you’ll think not. But if you’re OK with spending $40 on a slice of a melon that’s been tortured to taste as sweet as a handful of Skittles and flown in from Japan that morning, quite possibly.

That well-travelled melon is part of the menu at Tobi Masa, brought to you by Chef Masa, who has had his eponymous $1500-a-head sushi restaurant in New York since 2004.

There’s a casual Mediterranean restaurant called Serra across the lobby, which does absolutely fine pastas and grilled meats and lovely crudo, but it’s Tobi Masa that’s the place to book (don’t be distracted by the new outpost of Carbone that’s on the corner — it’s nothing to do with the hotel).

Alsace Gyotaku (Pinot blanc and riesling blended specifically to go with sushi) served by the glass elevates the whole thing to a another level. Yes, it’s wildly pricey, but still cheaper than staying the night. One absolute stand-out food-wise: the cakes in the refined Jacqueline tearoom (named after Jackie Onassis) are extraordinary, sculptural and worth ordering for a special occasion at home.

If you are lucky enough to be staying the night here, you can look forward to the books in the rooms, a great mix of design and social history. Ditto the art (there’s an in-house art concierge if you want a tour of the Hockneys and Peter Blakes dotted around the hotel).

The NeuroFusion Treatment Massages in Asaya — a strong contender for best spa in the city in terms of mood and facilities — use aromatherapy oils by Moods that are so good I went online and ordered a $50 rollerball of Charisma the next day. The gym is lavish and entirely colour coordinated in Armani greige.

The pool is an impressive 25m long, which is on par with the Peninsula and Bulgari, and the cold plunge tank, sauna and steam rooms are all gorgeous.

Elsewhere, there’s still a fair bit of grit in the metaphorical oyster. The lifts are bewildering. A row of them offered floor seven as an option — where the Eagle Bar is located — but wouldn’t oblige.

There was actually only one lift up, guarded by someone with an electronic clipboard. There was a lift from my room on the sixth floor that went directly to the spa, but I couldn’t find one on the lobby floor after breakfast (extraordinarily not included in the room rate).

A member of staff escorted me: down one floor, through a business convention, then two fire doors. Who thought all this through? Ditto the floor plan of Serra, which creates a bottleneck at the entrance. Sometimes the simplest things are where even $2b hotels fall down.

My butler came to my room to introduce himself and I pointed out I couldn’t log onto the wi-fi. We tried every permutation of my surname, but no joy. I was assured it would all be sorted in minutes but never heard from him again.

David Chipperfield Architects didn’t keep enough of the original Grade II-listed structure to make a walk inside the Chancery Rosewood as exciting to design nerds as, say, a stay at Saarinen’s space-age TWA Hotel at JFK Airport.

Some of the revisions are improvements: Saarinen always wanted the London building to be taller than it was. Chipperfield and Rosewood have now granted his wishes with an extra storey.

You can now study the rear of the Embassy’s iconic golden eagle sculpture — forged from old components of B-52s by sculptor Theodore Roszak in 1960 — from the terrace of the Eagle Bar on the roof, while drinking a $240 Green Card signature cocktail for four to six people, with rum, melon and coconut.

Among notable design features is Saarinen’s original ceiling grid in the lobby, although the Joseph Dirand interiors pull focus from it. The lobby is full of Krug-coloured metals, with an atrium of crystal sculpture that takes your attention skywards.

Upstairs, the suites have a swanky, sombre, James Bond kind of mid-century style. They are beautiful, but you could be in Tokyo or Zurich.

For all its scale, wow factor and impressive views across the skyline, the hotel doesn’t have a strong sense of place.

But then, the American Embassy was always part of a surreal transatlantic enclave in Mayfair. Now it’s even more so.

When you cross the threshold of it today, you’re in an international zone of extraordinary luxury.

Rosewood strived to create another world for that sought after one per cent and has largely succeeded.

Suites from about $2800, room only (breakfast $80 extra or à la carte). There are 30 fully accessible suites. The Chancery Rosewood, 30 Grosvenor Square, London W1K 9AN (020 7889 7000)