Six Senses London

About

A Six Senses in Bayswater sounds, at first, like a slight category error. The brand of barefoot villas, jungle spas and faraway breakfasts has landed on Queensway, inside one of London’s great monuments to shopping. But that is exactly why it works. The Whiteley began in 1863 as William Whiteley’s drapery shop on Westbourne Grove and grew into the “Universal Provider”, a store said to supply anything from a pin to an elephant. London, naturally, took this as a reasonable business model. The present building opened in 1911, all columns, clocks, stonework and Edwardian retail swagger. Foster + Partners has now folded it into a residential, retail and leisure complex, with Six Senses occupying the calmer part of the story. The façade remains grand enough to make most hotel entrances look apologetic. Inside, the mood changes. The lobby is pale, planted and gently curved, less palace of commerce than elegant exhale. Rooms bring soft greens, timber, warm light and a residential ease that feels more Notting Hill apartment than hotel theatre. Then the bathrooms raise an eyebrow: blue glazed tiles, marble, generous tubs, proper fittings. They are almost too handsome to steam up. The spa goes further, with hammam, sauna, cryotherapy, flotation, longevity treatments, 13 treatment rooms and enough calibrated wellbeing to make a walk in nearby Hyde Park feel charmingly amateur. Whiteley’s Kitchen, Bar & Café keeps the place from becoming too virtuous, with modern British cooking, a grown up bar and the comforting idea that wellness may still include a good chair and a better cocktail. Bayswater is the clever choice. Close to Hyde Park and Notting Hill, but with enough everyday London left in it to avoid the sealed glass feeling of some luxury districts. Six Senses London is polished, new and perhaps still waiting for a little patina, but it has a real building, a real story and a very persuasive sense of arrival.