The Savoy London Review — Is It Still Worth It in 2026?

The Two Wings — Edwardian vs. Art Deco

The decision between the Edwardian and Art Deco wings is genuinely worth making consciously. The Edwardian rooms — warm cream and gold, traditional English proportions, the kind of room that feels like it was furnished by someone who had read widely and travelled well — sit in the wing closest to the Strand. The Art Deco rooms are sharper: graphic patterns, bolder colour, a geometry that feels designed rather than accumulated. Both are excellent. Which suits you depends on whether you respond more to tradition or to modernity. What unites them is the finish quality throughout: marble bathrooms with Hansgrohe rainfall showers and a full bath in most categories, Molton Brown amenities, properly made beds. The hotel was restored at a cost of £220 million between 2007 and 2010, and a further £45 million room refurbishment programme began in August 2024 and runs through to 2027. Rooms come with a complimentary mini bar concealed behind mahogany cabinetry. It is modest by the standards of the rate, but it is there and it is included. This is not a grand hotel living on heritage alone.

One practical note: on the Strand-facing side, particularly in lower floors, street noise is present at certain hours. The Savoy’s position on one of London’s main thoroughfares is a geographic fact. Rooms on upper floors and the river-facing side are dramatically quieter. If you’re a light sleeper or have an early meeting, request upper floors when booking.

The Thames View — Why It Changes Everything

I want to be direct about this: the Thames-facing rooms at The Savoy are among the best hotel rooms in London at any price. Waking to the river — the bridges, the South Bank’s low skyline, the early morning light moving across the water — is an experience that no interior, however beautifully restored, can replicate. The Savoy’s position on the Embankment side gives it something that Claridge’s, the Connaught, and even the Langham simply cannot offer. When you’re making your booking, the step up from a Strand-facing Classic to a Thames-facing Superior is the single most worthwhile upgrade in this hotel. Do not book The Savoy and look at a wall.

“The Thames-facing rooms at The Savoy are among the best hotel rooms in London at any price. Waking to the river — the bridges, the South Bank, the morning light on the water — is something no interior, however beautiful, can replicate.”

Suites & Butler Service

The Savoy’s suite programme runs from Junior Suites to the Royal Suite — a multi-room configuration that has hosted the kind of guests whose names appear in history books. Butler service is available across the full suite tier and operates with the seriousness you’d expect from a property of this type: restaurant bookings, unpacking and packing on request, in-suite dining coordination, and an insider knowledge of the city that a good hotel butler should have and a bad one pretends to. The River Suites on the upper floors with full-width river views represent the clearest case for suite-level spend in the London five-star market — there are few rooms in this city where the combination of interior and view justifies the rate as cleanly as these do.

What I’d Flag

Two things in the room that sit oddly at this price point. First, the chandeliers: what appears at first glance to be a statement fixture is, on closer inspection, largely plastic — the frame dressed with crystal-style embellishments rather than the real thing. It’s a decorating decision that reads as incongruous in a hotel that otherwise executes on detail. Second, the plug sockets. The bedside sockets use old-fashioned rounded plugs, which means if you want to charge your phone you will likely need to unplug a lamp. There is no accessible socket near the mirror for anyone who needs one. For a hotel at this rate, this is a genuine daily inconvenience rather than a minor quirk.

Classic Rooms on the Strand-facing side at entry rates are the weakest proposition in the portfolio. You’re paying five-star prices for a room that, without the river and without the additional space of a Superior or Deluxe, relies heavily on the building’s cachet to justify the rate. The Savoy is a hotel that rewards investment in room category. At Classic level facing the Strand, the value equation requires you to care about the name on the door more than the room behind it. Some people do. That’s a legitimate choice. Just make it consciously.

The American Bar — The Bar That Wrote the Book

In 1920 Harry Craddock arrived at the American Bar having fled US Prohibition. By 1926 he was head bartender, and by 1930 the hotel had commissioned him to compile The Savoy Cocktail Book — 750 recipes, still in print today, for which Craddock never earned a penny. The White Lady and the Corpse Reviver No. 2 are his inventions. The Hanky Panky was created by his predecessor Ada Coleman — the first woman to lead the American Bar — and remains on the current programme. In 1927, Craddock buried a White Lady cocktail sealed in a shaker inside a wall of the bar. It has never been found. That history is present in the room in a way that doesn’t feel like a museum. The cocktails are made with the kind of precision that a bar with this specific legacy is obligated to maintain. The ice cubes are branded with the Savoy name. One item on the current programme is worth seeking specifically: a cocktail whose recipe was sent to space by NASA, connected to a letter from Neil Armstrong. The staff know the story. It is exactly the kind of thing the American Bar should be doing.

The bar is also, by London hotel bar standards, relatively quiet in the sense that matters: conversations don’t compete with music. This is rarer than it should be.

“The American Bar is small, precise, and historically loaded. The cocktails are made with the kind of care that a bar with this specific legacy is obligated to maintain. I went three times in three nights. None of it felt excessive.”

The Savoy Grill — A Great London Dining Room

The Savoy Grill has been feeding London’s establishment since 1889, and the names that have passed through it — Churchill, Chaplin, Sinatra, Thatcher — are less a marketing exercise than a geological record of the city’s social life. The current operation is run under Gordon Ramsay’s hospitality group, and it functions as a serious British restaurant with a menu built around the classics done well: beef Wellington, Dover sole, the trolley. The Beef Wellington here is the correct one to order — not because it’s a cliché but because this kitchen executes it with the kind of confidence that only comes from making it hundreds of times.

The room itself is worth noting: high ceilings, wood panelling, the kind of dining room where transactions happen because the environment was designed for them. Business diners in particular will find The Grill functions almost perfectly for client entertainment. One honest critique: the Grill can feel slightly formal to the point of stiff on quieter weekday lunches. On a busy evening, it’s one of the great London experiences. Book the evening.

The River Restaurant by Gordon Ramsay

The River Restaurant is The Savoy’s seafood-focused dining room under the Gordon Ramsay group, built around the best shellfish and seafood the UK produces: fresh oysters, ceviche, caviar, grilled Cornish lobster, whole day-boat fish. The menu is more relaxed in register than the Grill or Restaurant 1890 — this is the room for a long lunch or an easy dinner where the produce does the work. The tandoori monkfish curry is a dish that appears on tables throughout service for a reason. The wine list leans white Burgundy and Champagne, which makes obvious sense.

Gallery — Afternoon Tea & All-Day Dining

For most of its 135-year history, this room was known as the Thames Foyer. It closed on 21 August 2024 and reopened on 23 November 2024 as Gallery, following a complete transformation by London-based design studio BradyWilliams. The atrium remains as the defining architectural feature, now with modernised lighting that shifts the atmosphere from morning through to late evening. The new design adds black and white marble, fluted glass, gold-embossed mirrors, and leather seating in soft pink, warm ochre, and heritage tan. Three months from closed to reopened is fast for a renovation of this scale, and the result shows the investment.

Gallery operates as a genuine all-day venue: breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, cocktail hour, dinner, and late-night drinks. The afternoon tea — at around £90 per person — remains the anchor of the programme. The dedicated scone shop Scoff, which opened alongside Gallery and serves freshly-baked scones daily from 12:04pm, is a small but characterful addition. Book two to three weeks ahead for any weekend afternoon tea sitting.

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand — Delayed, Still Anticipated

Worth flagging for anyone booking a stay now: Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, the grand dining room adjacent to The Savoy that has been serving roast beef from a silver trolley since 1828, is reopening under Jeremy King Restaurants. The reopening has been set back by a year of delays and no confirmed date is currently public. Check current status before booking if this is part of your itinerary.

The Beaufort Bar & Restaurant 1890

The Beaufort Bar — occupying what was formerly the hotel’s cabaret stage — operates in an entirely different register from the American Bar: black and gold, theatrical, champagne-forward, designed for occasion rather than conversation. If the American Bar is the room for a serious drink and a long evening, the Beaufort Bar is the room for a celebration.

Restaurant 1890 by Gordon Ramsay is The Savoy’s Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant, named for the year Auguste Escoffier arrived at the hotel as its founding chef. It’s a tasting menu-only operation — intimate, precise, overlooking Savoy Court. Two honest notes: the portion sizes are genuinely small even by tasting menu standards. And the wine is served in glass measuring vessels rather than conventional wine glasses — a deliberate presentation choice that divides opinion cleanly. If flexibility matters, the Grill serves you better.

An Honest Assessment

To be clear about what the Fairmont Spa is and isn’t. It is a professionally run spa with a competent treatment team, proper sauna and steam facilities, and a pool that functions well and is never unpleasantly crowded in my experience. It is not architecturally remarkable — if you’re arriving from a stay that included something like The Langham’s Victorian vault pool, the comparison will be obvious. If spa and wellness are central to your London itinerary, the Savoy will serve you adequately and pleasantly. If they are the main event, direct your budget to a property where the spa is the defining architectural statement.

Is The Savoy Worth the Money?

At Thames View level and above: yes, clearly. The river rooms are among the finest hotel rooms in London at any price, the American Bar is irreplaceable, and The Savoy Grill is one of the great London dining rooms. That combination — particularly if you are staying for a special occasion, a business trip where the atmosphere of the place matters, or simply because you have decided that London deserves to be done properly — justifies the rate with room to spare.

At Classic Strand-facing level, the calculation is harder. You’re paying a significant premium for a hotel whose signature assets — the river, the bar, the Grill — are all accessible without the room upgrade. The name is famous. The building is extraordinary. But the entry-level room itself, on the Strand side, does not deliver the full Savoy experience in the way that spending another £200 a night on a Thames-facing Superior unambiguously does. My recommendation: save the money elsewhere and put it into the room category here.

“Breakfast is not included in standard rates — add approximately £45 per person per day. Bookings through preferred travel advisors typically include daily breakfast and a room upgrade. At this pricing, that changes the value equation considerably.”

When to Book for Best Value

January through March are the quietest months and offer the most competitive rates — the hotel operates at its most relaxed during this window, spa availability opens up, and The Grill is easier to book without weeks of lead time. May through June and September through October represent the sweet spots for London weather and the hotel’s full programme. Summer peak (July and August) sees rates at their highest and the lobby at its busiest. For theatre season, book the autumn — The Savoy’s proximity to the West End makes a stay here feel purposefully curated rather than merely convenient.