The Claridges Hotel New Delhi is a great option for those looking for a sanctuary from the constant hustle and bustle of India’s capital…
TL;DR:
Pros:
- Great central location
- Exceptional customer service (99% of the time)
- Grandiose design
- Large selection of restaurants – and a great breakfast buffet
Cons:
- Many areas worn and showing their age
- Don’t pick rooms 135 and 134 if you want a window with a view
- Orders can take their time to arrive
- Quite pricey
A luxury hotel in New Delhi
After two weeks of travelling around India, living from my suitcase, I wanted to finish my trip with a couple of days of R&R at a luxury hotel in New Delhi.
And so, during my long bus and train journeys between Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi, Khajuraho and Orchha, I began researching luxury hotels in New Delhi and came up with a shortlist, which included Le Meridian, The Oberoi and Taj Palace.
In the end I chose The Claridges, partly down to the fact it had the look of the smaller boutique hotels I love, and I wanted something with character after having stayed in several large, generic hotels. I was also craving comfort and something known, and the name reminded me of home, even though I later learnt it’s in no way related to Claridges in London.
Location of The Claridges New Delhi
Also, the hotel was quite central, and in one of the cleaner and more safe feeling parts of the city, Lutyens New Delhi. This area is named after British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, who was responsible for much of the architectural design and building during the time that India was part of the British Empire. Today it’s home to India’s Prime Minister, and many ministerial buildings, embassies and luxury hotels.
Interior Design of The Claridges
This hotel also appealed because I love a bit of old-world elegance, which this hotel has in droves, as it was the first five-star hotel to be opened in independent India, back in 1955.
Although there are aspects of contemporary luxury throughout, The Claridges has kept its classic feel and colonial ambience in both its rooms and shared spaces. The hotel has never expanded, and remains a low-rise, three floor establishment, with a grandiose reception space complete with elegant curved staircases.
This definitely gives the wow factor when you first arrive – as does the customer service. This was very hit and miss across the eight hotels we stayed in during our tour, but here they got it right 99% of the time.
As we pulled up in our taxi, a doorman welcomed us to the hotel, and the moment we crossed the threshold, a member of the reception team guided us to comfy seats to check us in.
We’d arrived several hours before check-in time, so as expected we weren’t able to head to our room yet. Instead, she invited us to have lunch in the restaurant or relax by the pool, and gave us a short, guided tour of some of the hotel’s facilities before making sure we were settled and had everything we needed while we waited.
Hospitality at The Claridges
It didn’t take long for us to learn that The Claridges’ customer service ‘style’ is to under promise and over deliver. Although we had been told we’d have to wait several hours before we could check in, the receptionist returned after about 60 minutes to inform us that they’d managed to get the room ready for us ahead of time.
But not everything here was perfect. My first disappointment at The Claridges came upon opening the door to our room (135). Instead of the bright, spacious rooms I expected from their website photos, this was dark, and felt pokey.
Now, for a bit of billy balance, I have to say that the previous ten nights had mainly been spent in large hotels aimed towards tours and business travellers, where the rooms were regularly pretty spacious. My other half pointed out that actually this was a perfectly normal-sized hotel room, and reminded me that we had booked the basic room, not a suite.
Accommodation at The Claridges
Indeed, it was the most basic of those available at the hotel – a boutique room, which comes under the superior rooms umbrella, alongside the heritage rooms, which, from the pictures, looked like a step up in design.
The next tier are the deluxe rooms, with extra features like sensor-driven lighting, balconies etc, but the majority are the same size as the superior rooms (320sqft) or just a little larger (350 sqft).
Then there’s the larger (420sqft) premium rooms and finally the jaw dropping suites, which are individually decorated and all over 1250sqft in size.
Reigning in my expectations (and yes, to be fair I am a bit of a diva and I was feeling rather tired and therefore less accepting at this point) I got his point of view and would have accepted this room apart from one issue – there was no proper window!
The curtains had been left closed and the side lights on when we entered, but when I opened the curtains, I was greeted with a frosted window that no sunlight was coming through. I’m sorry, but if I’m staying in a luxury hotel in New Delhi, I do expect basics like a window that allows me to see outside!
I honestly think we had the hotel’s worst room sadly, but I guess that’s the luck of the draw when you visit at the height of wedding season. Still, I wanted to see if there was a possibility to change rooms and asked reception.
We were told sadly no, because the hotel was fully booked, but in another example of under promising and over delivering, our friendly receptionist lady came and found us a little later to say they’re wrangled things to make it possible for us to move to the room next door (134), which yes, had a fully functional window!
I appreciated the effort made and happily accepted the new room, which although had a restricted view, did enable sunlight to enter our room, and for us to see out to a slither of the pool. It also enabled us to see what was causing next door to be so dark – right in front of the frosted window was a latticed concrete wall!
Hotel room amenities
Having got over my tizzy-fit, and accepted that the quality of The Claridges basic room wasn’t as bad as I’d originally made out, I started to check out what was on offer.
Dainty tea cups were set out next to a selection box of teas, while the coffee drinkers will be happy to known that the rooms also have a selection of coffee pods on offer. Obviously then, there’s a Nespresso-style coffee maker available, but what I loved was the super swish kettle.
This high-tech model had a touchscreen that allowed you to pick the temperature you wished to heat the water to and had the option to keep the water heated to your chosen temperature. Neat!
The room had a large screen TV, with a good selection of channels available and in the wardrobe was a clothes steamer, slip-on slippers and my favourite – a big, white fluffy The Claridges dressing gown.
I wrapped myself in this after having luxurious bath – the bathroom also had a fixed shower, which was both powerful and hot, something that’s not a given in Indian hotels! Like the dressing gowns, all the towels were embossed with The Claridges’ logo, were large, thick and fluffy and all the usual bathroom amenities, such as a comb, razor, shower cap were available, in a beautiful storage box.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly – the bed. When we first came in, this was hidden under A literal sea of cushions, but once we’ve popped these out of the way in the ottoman, what we found was a super comfortable king size bed, with four soft pillows that provided the perfect level of support for your head and neck. Of all the hotels I stayed in, I slept best here.
Room service and housekeeping quality
I didn’t take advantage of room service during my short stay at The Claridges New Delhi, but I loved the housekeeping team. I met Tripadvisor celebrity Prakash, who is named dropped in many of the reviews I checked out before booking, thanks to his happy and helpful demeanour.
Whenever we saw him, he always asked if we were happy with our room, needed anything and whether we were enjoying our stay. He offered a turndown service, and always checked if we wanted our room cleaned, bed changed etc. We said not to worry, as we were only staying two nights, but when we came back to our room, we found it freshly stocked up with tea bags and bottled water and a lovely towel decoration covered in rose petals on the bed.
Dining options at The Claridges Hotel New Delhi
One of the things The Claridges is most renowned for is its breadth of dining options. The hotel has a total of seven restaurants, cafes and bars offering everything from Indian specialities and Thai favourites through to afternoon/ high tea and coffees and croissants.
During our stay we enjoyed three of these, starting with Ye Old Bakery. This is one of the oldest bakery shops in the city, and (understandably) popular among locals. All the breads, biscuits, cakes and pastries are beautifully presented, and from my experience, perfectly baked.
My favourite was the giant pain au chocolat, which was served warm, with gorgeous flaky pastry, dusted in icing sugar and with a soft chocolate centre. Man, I miss them so much.
The great thing for overnight guests is that the bakery provides many of the baked goods for the breakfast buffet, so you have the option to enjoy some of the most delicious pastries every morning.
The buffet is served in the hotel’s main restaurant, Lutyens, and did not disappoint. Alongside the juice and fruit counters is a variety of continental (cold) breakfast options, while another counter offers a selection of hot Indian and western breakfast dishes, including puri, rotis, bacon and both chicken and pork sausages.
Finally, chefs are waiting to make your eggs, waffles and pancakes to order. If you leave here hungry, you’re doing something wrong.
We didn’t get round to eating dinner or lunch in Lutyens, but being the main thoroughfare through to the pool from the reception area, I did regularly spot a pianist serenading diners, which was a lovely touch.
Of course, I couldn’t visit The Claridges without having afternoon tea! This can be taken at a variety of spots including poolside, on the front lawn or, as we chose, at Pickwick. This a beautifully designed restaurant, which has the most amazing painting of an 18th century world map across its ceiling. I’ll be writing about my afternoon experience here soon, so keep your eyes open for new posts to find out more…
Other hotel facilities
The hotel had a good range of facilities, but it can be a bit hit and miss whether you’re told about them, and I wasn’t able find a full list of what was on offer anywhere.
We decided to explore the hotel for ourselves to discover what was on offer, and came across a large gym area, a full-size snooker table on floor three and a number of outdoor seating spaces hidden away on floors two and three.
Of course, we spent a lot of time by the pool, which had some lovely shaded loungers, as well as pool-side tables, which is also very close to the hotel’s award winning Cinqtuair Spa.
As you’d expect, treatments weren’t cheap, but as the holiday was coming to an end, I decided to treat myself to one of their less expensive options, the 30-minute scalp, neck and shoulder massage, which cost approximately £35.
I’m glad I did, as I got to see inside this beautiful spa, with treatment rooms that have gorgeous painted walls, low lighting and calming scents. My massage was blissful, working out the knots in my neck and shoulders using just the right level of force, and ending with a scalp massage that eased away the last of my tension. If you’ve got the money to spare, then I highly recommend it.
Cleanliness and maintenance
It’s also worth noting that The Claridges is showing it’s age. The main areas like the pool, restaurants and reception etc were in mint condition, but elsewhere throughout the hotel you could see peeling paint and crumbling concrete and when it came to the corridors and rooms, many aspects look dated and worn.
The hotel will acknowledge this however, and is working on remedying it, as renovation work is well underway. It was easy to see that they’re working their way through hotel simply from looking at the difference in some of the hotel room doors – whereas ours was plain white wood, with a black frame and metal door numbers, others had been given a coat of silky, gloss black paint and swish electronic pad and doorbell. I didn’t get to peek inside any of the refurbed rooms, but I can imagine if you get one of these you’ll be in for a treat.
Value for money?
I also shouldn’t have been surprised by the prices at the hotel – beer prices were on par with a London pub, and our coke and orange juice cost over £12 when service and luxury tax was added.
Restaurant prices were pretty steep too, apart from one anomaly – the afternoon tea, which after all additional charges worked out about £25 per person, while a single cuppa in Lutyens would cost you around £4!
Overall Experience at The Claridges
I think that my experience with room 135 put a dark cloud over my stay, and that if we’d had one of the refurbished rooms, I would have felt more positive about my time at there.
The Claridges New Delhi was the nicest of the hotels I stayed in during my travels across north India, but although aspects of the hotel were as I’d expect from a five-star property, it did fall short in some places.
These were personal niggles rather than serious issues – for example, on one occasion we had to chase several times over a two-hour period just to get the drinks we ordered (nothing exotic – just a diet coke and an OJ!). Very much first world problems, but not something you’d expect to have to do when staying at a high-end hotel (although a regular occurrence throughout India we discovered).
I have to say, however, that they won us over by telling us our sweet treats were on the house when we first went to the bakery, as an apology for their delay. Now that’s how you do it lol!
Is it the best hotel in New Delhi? I don’t have the experience to say, but even though I may come across quite negative about my visit, overall I would recommend The Claridges to people looking for a high-end hotel in New Delhi.
This is because, as I said earlier, the niggles were quite personal to my experience and mindset at the time, and I believe many people would have thought of the stay in a much more positive light.
My advice is, whatever luxury hotel in New Delhi you choose, remember that you are in India, and things here are often done differently from what you’re used to at hotel in other countries. if you keep this in mind, then you’re most likely going to enjoy a relaxing, indulgent stay in one of the capital’s most iconic luxury hotels.
