The Royal Lancaster London Hotel ranks as the best hotel in the UK and the fourth best in the world
The UK’s number-one hotel has been handed a ‘shock’ 2 food and hygiene rating by the environmental health team.
The Royal Lancaster Hotel, on Lancaster Terrace, is rated as the number one hotel in the UK on TripAdvisor. Yet, in its most recent food hygiene rating, it received a 2, indicating ‘improvements are necessary.’
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) noted the presence of ‘fresh mouse droppings’ in the pastry kitchen and that the can openers used in three of the hotel’s kitchens were not cleaned after every use, posing a risk of cross-contamination.
Sally Beck, General Manager of the Royal Lancaster London Hotel, said she was “horrified” when she received the rating and that the hotel immediately addressed the issues raised.
Mrs Beck told MyLondon: “There were two big findings with the can openers not being cleaned, and then we had a big piece of oven equipment we weren’t using, and the team had not been cleaning behind it. There were [mice] droppings behind it so when the EHA came in, they said that we weren’t on top of our cleaning or processes because those two things showed we weren’t.”
Mrs Beck told us how she is always in contact with Rentokil Pest Control about the presence of mice in the building. However, due to the hotel’s location and its attachment to Lancaster Gate station, dealing with mice in the building seems impossible.
“We were horrified when we received the rating. When it comes to the mice, we asked Rentokil, ‘Is there a way to ever get rid of the mice’, and they said, ‘We’d never be able to’. Because we have a Tube station, Hyde Park, they are part of the fabric of the building. It’s about constantly cleaning and stopping and filling.”
When MyLondon visited the site, new can openers had been installed in the kitchens and the broken oven in the pastry kitchen had been removed. In the areas where mouse droppings were previously pictured, there were none there on our visit.
The hotel labels itself a ‘5-star city hotel’, yet it is not officially rated as 5-star by the AA. This was a decision that Sally said was ‘intentional’ and they did not want to be ‘rated’. The hotel has, however, been ‘Quality Assessed’ by the AA.
“In 5-star hotels, there’s a massive range. We don’t have a spa; we have 411 bedrooms and a small 24-hour gym. We don’t want to be listed as a 5-star, as people have those assumptions. I asked AA to come and grade us for our service, but to not give us a five-star rating, instead choosing to be quality assessed and [ultimately] rated by our guests.”
When MyLondon pointed out that on the official website, the hotel refers to itself as ‘5-star city hotel in London’ and tells guests to experience one of London’s ‘5-star city hotels’, Mrs Beck said, ‘We should change that.’
“If we were officially rated, we would get the five stars. Not being five-star enables us to run the events business side that we want. The ability to host awards, dinners and conferences. We offer five-star service, but we are not luxury,” she added.
“We are not a flash hotel but we are number one [in the UK]; that is down to our service. My team does so much. I have to own what has happened. We had this oversight and missed a couple of processes. It wasn’t a systemic problem.”
The hotel is now awaiting an FSA reinspection in September. “From that day of the rating, things were fixed. I know we will get a five [in the next rating]. This experience showed we can’t get complacent.
“When I first came to the hotel, we were rated in the 200s. We’ve kept growing every year and in June last year, we were number one in the UK, number two in Europe and number four in the world.”
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