Some dinners taste better upstairs. The suite dinner is the four hour dinner date on the rates ladder, £900, arranged around your hotel: its own dining room on the ground floor, a table a few minutes away on foot, or a meal wheeled into your suite on a white cloth while the city carries on below the window.
Those four hours begin at her knock and hold the whole shape of an evening: an aperitif, three courses at an unhurried pace, a last glass once the plates have gone. Her fee buys her time and company; the bill for the food and wine is yours, just as with anyone you invite to dinner.
Downstairs: the hotel restaurant, where the staff already know your name and the journey home is a lift ride. Nearby: a restaurant within ten minutes' walk, reserved in your name. Upstairs: in suite dining, the most private version, with the door closed and the menu chosen together. Many guests mix the three, a drink in the bar, then dinner sent up. Suites with a proper dining table and a view of the park turn up often in the Knightsbridge floor by floor notes.
A few London hotels are almost built for this. In Mayfair, Hélène Darroze at The Connaught and the restaurant at Claridge's are a short lift ride from their suites, and the Mayfair hotel notes list more. In Knightsbridge, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal sits inside the Mandarin Oriental with Hyde Park beyond the glass. The dining room at The Goring is as calm as London gets on a weeknight. The Ritz still expects jacket and tie in its restaurant, and she dresses to match. For height, Ting at the Shangri-La looks across the river from inside The Shard.
20:00, she knocks, or finds you at the bar. 20:30, you sit down. Three courses take about two hours when nobody is looking at a watch. 22:30, coffee or a digestif, and the conversation that tends to arrive once a good meal is finished. Midnight, the four hours close and she takes the lift down. If you would like the evening to run on into morning, raise it when you book: a dinner can be folded into an overnight when her diary is clear.
A good table and a companion free for four hours both reward a little notice. A message sent by three or four o'clock usually secures both, and later requests often work, above all for dinner in your own hotel or in the suite. Tell Henrietta the restaurant if you have one, the time and the dress code. No reservation yet? Name the district and the mood, formal or easy, and the confirmation comes back with a table she likes nearby.
She arrives dressed for the room you name, whether that is a jacket and tie dining room or a relaxed brasserie with paper on the tables. She is good company without making a performance of it: curious about your day, easy with waiters, happy to share a pudding. And the room learns nothing beyond the obvious, that two people are enjoying dinner together.
Bianka, from Knightsbridge, pays close attention to what you order and why, and her choice of bottle tends to be the right one. Margo, in her early thirties, brings an unhurried composure that makes four hours at a table feel short. Michelle, 173 cm and Chelsea based, looks after a table so naturally that nobody notices her doing it. Liana, from Marylebone, is the gentle choice for a dinner where a pause is as welcome as a story. All four appear under brunettes.
Plans move. Cancel or reschedule with three hours or more to spare and there is nothing to pay. If the restaurant loses your booking or the kitchen closes early, tell the desk; dinner in the suite is always there as a fallback. The booking page shows each step, and a message now holds tonight's table and tonight's companion.
Straight answers from the night desk. Anything missing goes to Henrietta in one message.
No. £900 covers four hours of her company and nothing else. The meal, the wine and any service charge are settled by you with the restaurant, exactly as for any guest you take to dinner.
Yes, and many guests prefer it. Order ahead or once she arrives; the four hours run the same either way, and nobody else is in the room.
Of course. Pass on the restaurant's name and your booking slot. She arrives a few minutes early and asks for your table by name.
Either works. Name a favourite if you have one. If not, give the district and the mood, and her suggestion comes back with the confirmation.
Describe the plan for suite dinners in a line or two, and the desk comes back with names, a figure and a time.
