Mandarin Oriental Mayfair

Mandarin Oriental opened its second London hotel on 3 June 2024, installing 50 rooms and suites inside a purpose-built tower on Hanover Square — the first new construction in Mayfair in over a decade. Designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners with a distinctive Vierendeel structure and burnt-brick facade, the property pairs an intimate room count with 77 private residences, a subterranean spa built around a 25-metre pool, and a flagship restaurant from chef Akira Back.

The place

Mandarin Oriental Mayfair sits on Hanover Square, a Georgian square in the heart of Mayfair a few minutes' walk from Bond Street and Oxford Street. The address places the hotel among London's densest concentration of luxury retail and West End galleries, while the square itself remains comparatively quiet, ringed by period townhouses and mature plane trees. It is the group's second London property after Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, and its first ground-up build in the city — a rare opportunity in a conservation area where new construction is tightly restricted. The building is also, by the developer's account, the first new-build hotel to open in Mayfair in more than a decade.

The concept

The hotel was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), using a Vierendeel frame structure clad in bands of burnt red brick intended to echo the tone of the surrounding Georgian terraces without imitating them directly. Studio Indigo designed the 50 guest rooms and suites and the building's 77 private residences, while the Tokyo-based studio Curiosity oversaw the public spaces, layering Mandarin Oriental's Asian-heritage cues — Ming-green marble, silk, ikebana-inspired floral arrangements — onto a building that reads as unmistakably contemporary. Developer Clivedale London backed the project, betting that a low room count relative to the residence tally would keep the hotel's public areas calmer than a typical big-city luxury opening. That ratio is central to the concept: with only 50 keys against 77 residences, the hotel functions less as a high-volume address and more as a private, residential-scaled base layered into Mayfair's shopping and gallery district, aimed at guests who want the neighbourhood's density without the scale of a conventional flagship hotel. It is Mandarin Oriental's most architecturally ambitious London statement to date, and a marker of how directly the group is now competing for share of the capital's ultra-luxury hotel market against established names such as Claridge's, the Connaught and the Peninsula.

Dining & wellness

Dining centres on Akira Back, a 148-seat restaurant from the Michelin-recognised Korean-American chef, which includes three private dining rooms and marks his first London opening. Alongside it sits Dosa, a 14-seat chef's table serving contemporary Korean cuisine. ABar Lounge operates as the hotel's all-day cocktail bar with live DJs, and ABar Rooftop, which opened later in 2024, added a bar and terrace with panoramic views over the city. Wellness runs on a subterranean level, where a 25-metre pool anchors a spa offering vitality pools, a sauna, a gym with personal training and reformer Pilates, and treatments including binaural biohacking sessions and NormaTec recovery technology.