Views of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge surround the residence

Our hotel of the month has grandeur, a high-energy Japanese-Chinese restaurant, jazz under an Imperial dome and much more, right next to the Tower of London

What drew us there?

Arriving at the Four Seasons, Ten Trinity Square, is a monumental experience. Literally. The building, in the city of London, and directly facing the Tower of London, is the former headquarters of the Port of London Authority. Walking up its entrance steps you feel as if you are due to be summoned inside for a meeting with the First Sea Lord about the Imperial Fleet in the South Pacific.

Mei Ume offers traditional Chinese and Japanese dishes with a modern approach to the cuisine

Those days have long gone, but fortunately, the building’s new incarnation as a Four Seasons hotel is rather more user-friendly. After checking, in, waft into the domed lobby area with its bar at the far end, the former rotunda at the heart of the orginal building, and you feel you are in a different world to the busy city outside. This is the only true luxury hotel in the city of London, and given that it is also a souvenir’s throw from the Tower of London, it offers an excellent location for an alternative view of the British capital.

The Experience

Our rooms, or should we call them chambers, with vast and high ceilings, were on the ground floor, with a palatial bedroom, connecting into an equally palatial living room, cupboards the size of small apartments, and a bathroom that looked like it might have been a bank vault in a previous incarnation.

Decor is rich, dark and masculine, and you feel you are secure in the heart of the establishment – in this case, the luxury hotel establishment. The Four Seasons also has a significant pool, running across a large portion of its footprint downstairs, with a bank of wellness pools and an adjoining spa.

The bedroom in the Heritage Suite

We were staying one night, it was hard to decide whether to eat light bites in the Rotunda bar under the dome of the lobby, which featured a live jazz band, or go for a more celebratory dinner in the Mei Ume Chinese and Japanese restaurant beyond.

We went for the latter, a vibey place with groups of slickly dressed people in their 20s and 30s looking highly photogenic for their instagrams. The Negronis were cutting edge, and we loved being able to dip into both cuisines: a signature beef rice bowl (with wagyu sirloin, egg and fried rice) along with some Har Gu and Chiu Mai dim sum, ginger and spring onion chicken buns that were just the right puffiness and bite, unagi and cucumber uramaki…it was not fusion cuisine, rather two distinctive cuisines in one high-energy restaurant. And then, we mellowed out with a digestif glass of champagne and some piano jazz in the bar. Beautiful.

The indoor swimming pool at the Spa

Anything else to know?

For business travellers, the hotel is super convenient for the city, and pretty close to Canary Wharf. For tourists, it is right next to the Tower of London had a short walk along the riverbank promenade to the Tate Modern. However, it is a little further from the traditional sites of the West End.

Rates: From £700 per night (approx. €795/$875)

Book your stay: www.fourseasons.com/tentrinity/

Darius Sanai