Mandarin Oriental Mayfair – red brick, Ming marble and a square reborn

Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, London opened on Hanover Square on 3 June 2024, the first new luxury hotel to open in Mayfair in more than a decade and the group's second London address after its storied Hyde Park original. The architecture announces itself quietly: a building unmistakably modern yet, with its façade's strips of red brick, paying tribute to the Georgian terraces around it. Fifty rooms and suites share the building with 77 private residences, which keeps the public rooms sedate rather than busy, while a rare green Ming marble lobby, a 25-metre subterranean pool and a rooftop bar with views to the London Eye do the work of announcing its ambitions. Mayfair's renowned fashion houses, independent galleries and Michelin-starred restaurants sit on its doorstep, with Soho, Regent Street and the West End within easy walking distance. The MICHELIN Guide awards the hotel Two Keys, placing it among London's most distinguished addresses for design and service.

01The house

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the practice behind the Lloyd's Building and the Pompidou Centre, designed Mandarin Oriental Mayfair as the first new build to rise on Mayfair's oldest square in more than a decade. The architects used a Vierendeel structural frame, one of the first of its kind in the UK, to free up wide internal spans; the result is a townscape façade clad in burnt red brick 'baguettes', reportedly the longest such bricks used in the country, a deliberate echo of the Georgian terraces that ring Hanover Square.

Inside, Studio Indigo handled the rooms and residences while the Tokyo studio Curiosity shaped the public spaces, and both leant hard on Mandarin Oriental's Asian heritage. The sculptural lobby and spa reception are faced in rare green Ming marble, chosen deliberately to echo the leafy squares nearby — Hanover, Berkeley and Green Park — while the dining spaces were conceived around the elements of wind, water, earth and fire, played out through suspended structures and metallic ceilings. The entrance itself, set back from the square, is unassuming by design; the drama waits inside, where a glass walkway and a spiral marble staircase pull guests down into a triple-height, light-filled atrium.

02Rooms and suites

The fifty rooms and suites sit alongside 77 private residences in the same building, a ratio that keeps the hotel's corridors quiet. House of de Gournay hand-painted silk wallpaper, its branches of delicate blue blossom a recurring motif, appears in every suite, its flowering-magnolia pattern a nod to the trees on Hanover Square and its leaf placement reportedly considered against each room's feng shui. Vivienne Westwood designed the hotel's signature fan, continuing a Mandarin Oriental tradition of commissioning a bespoke fan for every property.

Insider tip

Book Mazarine next door ahead; it only opens Tuesday to Saturday.

Families are not an afterthought: staff leave teddy bears in navy cardigans bearing the Mandarin Oriental fan on children's beds, a small, deliberate counterpoint to the hotel's otherwise grown-up, Mayfair-tailored restraint.

03Where to eat

Atrium Restaurant is the hotel's own all-day dining room, set beneath a dramatic skylight beside the green marble staircase, serving a contemporary European breakfast and lunch menu. Mornings bring a continental spread alongside signature plates — Eggs Benedict, Labneh Shakshuka with za'atar focaccia, buttermilk pancakes and a Tiramisu Croffle — while three private dining rooms are available for tailored occasions. Breakfast runs 7am to 10.30am and lunch from 12.30pm to 3pm. The room still carries an echo of its first life as Akira Back's UK debut restaurant, before the Korean-American chef ended his partnership with the hotel in 2025.

Next door on Hanover Square, independently run but listed among the hotel's own dining addresses, Mazarine opened in November 2025 as a French seafood atelier from restaurateurs Khaled Dandachi and Fred Srouchi. Chef Thierry Laborde, who trained under Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV in Monaco and later cooked at Chabrot Bistro d'Amis and Le Gavroche, built a menu around the sea: smoked-eel croquettes known as the Croque Mazarine, a Grand Aïoli Marseillais of salt cod, sea urchin and langoustines, and Octopus Béarnaise with a raviole of Cornish crab. It keeps shorter hours than the hotel itself — lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday.

04The bar

Perched on an upper floor, Hanover Bar is a refined cocktail room with an outdoor terrace and sweeping panoramic views across the city, the kind of vantage point from which you can spy the London Eye over a crafted cocktail. The space is open from 3pm, with DJs bringing funky house and chilled beats to the terrace on Thursday and Saturday evenings — a rare note of after-dark energy in an otherwise discreet hotel.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Spa sits below ground, an urban sanctuary built around what is reportedly Mayfair's longest indoor swimming pool, a 25-metre lane pool where guests do laps under faux starlight before treatments. The wellness floor also runs a sauna, steam room, vitality pools, an experience shower and a Technogym-equipped fitness centre with a private training studio and reformer Pilates machine, alongside physiotherapy, nutritional consultation and personal training. The Spa opens daily from 9am to 9pm, with in-house guests able to use the pool, sauna, steam room and fitness facilities without charge.

06The neighbourhood

Hanover Square is Mayfair's oldest square, and the hotel sits at what its own marketing calls the crossroads of art, fashion and culture — a fair description of a postcode ringed by independent galleries, fashion houses and Michelin-starred restaurants, with Soho, Regent Street and the West End all within easy walking distance. Bond Street, Savile Row and the Royal Academy of Arts are a few minutes on foot, putting the hotel at the centre of one of London's most concentrated districts for art, tailoring and luxury retail.

07Making the most of a stay

Book Atrium Restaurant for an unhurried breakfast before the square fills with shoppers, then save the evening for Mazarine next door — reserve ahead, since it only opens Tuesday to Saturday and tables for Chef Laborde's seafood plates go quickly. Climb to Hanover Bar as the light fades for cocktails with the London Eye on the horizon, and build in an early slot at The Spa's pool, where the faux-starlit ceiling makes laps feel like a small treat in themselves rather than a chore before dinner.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.