Cambridge House: the In & Out Club becomes Auberge's first London hotel
The Palladian mansion at 94 Piccadilly, home to a Duke, a Prime Minister, and a century of naval officers, opens as a hotel on 1 February, featuring a Major Food Group grill in the ballroom and a Roman-style bathhouse below.
Generations of Londoners have walked past 94 Piccadilly without thinking much about it. Set back behind a forecourt opposite Green Park, with its gate piers still painted with the words In and Out, it has spent most of the past quarter-century shuttered, a grand pale house waiting for someone to decide what to do with it. That someone turned out to be the Reuben brothers, who bought it as part of a £1 billion regeneration of the Piccadilly estate between Green Park and Shepherd Market. On 1 February next year, it opens as Cambridge House, the first British hotel from Auberge, the American group behind some of the best small resorts in California and, more recently, Collegio alla Querce in Florence.
Two and a half centuries of history
Few hotel buildings in London come with a story like this one. The house was commissioned in 1756 by the 2nd Earl of Egremont, built in the Palladian style and is now Grade I-listed. It takes its name from the Duke of Cambridge, a son of George III, who lived here in the early 19th century, and Queen Victoria was a visitor. Later, Lord Palmerston made it his home while Prime Minister, and it served as an unofficial annexe to Downing Street.
From 1865 until 1999 it was the Naval and Military Club, known to everyone as the In & Out after the painted gate signs that told carriages which way to drive through the forecourt. For more than a century it was where officers drank, dined and stayed when in town, and I suspect a good many of their grandchildren will want to book a room simply to see the place at last.
Deniot, Gonzalez and a bathhouse
There are 102 rooms and residences, and the interiors are by Jean-Louis Deniot, the Parisian decorator whose rooms manage to be grand and comfortable at once, with a sure hand for antiques and a gift for colour. He is a good choice for a building like this, and I would expect him to make the most of the Georgian proportions without turning the bedrooms into a museum.
The bar, the members' club and the spa are by Laura Gonzalez, also from Paris, whose work tends towards pattern, warmth and a good deal of fun. The spa occupies three floors and takes its cue from Roman bathhouses, with a heated swimming pool, hydrotherapy, six treatment rooms, a gym and a circular relaxation room built around a fire pit. A private members' club follows later in 2027.
Major's in the ballroom
The restaurant has been handed to Major Food Group, the New York team of Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick, whose Carbone is probably the hardest table to book in Manhattan. Major's Grill will be their take on the old London grill room crossed with an American chophouse, served in the restored Georgian ballroom and out into a courtyard planted with jasmine. Expect seafood towers, caviar, game and spit-roasted prime rib carved at the table, a wine list heavy with first-growth Bordeaux and grand cru Burgundy, and at least ten different martinis.
I have mixed feelings about this. MFG are brilliant at theatre, and the ballroom will suit them perfectly, but London already does a very good grill, from Wiltons to the Savoy, and I hope the menu shows some respect for that tradition rather than simply importing a New York show. Either way, it will be the most talked-about new dining room in Mayfair next spring.
Should you book?
Rates start at £1,250 a night, room only, which puts Cambridge House among the most expensive hotels in London from the day it opens. For that, you get one of the most beautiful and historic houses on Piccadilly, a serious spa and a restaurant people will be fighting to get into. I would wait until the spring, when the courtyard comes into its own and the first-month teething troubles are over, and ask for a room overlooking Green Park. Note that some booking pages currently show stays available from April rather than February, so check the dates carefully before you plan around the opening.
The details
Cambridge House, Auberge Collection, 94 Piccadilly, Mayfair. Opening 1 February 2027. 102 rooms and residences, Major's Grill by Major Food Group, signature bar, Wellbeing by Auberge spa with heated pool, members' club later in 2027. Rates from £1,250, room only. auberge.com