Review: the Andaz London Liverpool Street hotel

This is our review of the Andaz London Liverpool Street Hotel, part of Hyatt.

Not wanting £200 of Hyatt / American Express cashback to go to waste, I decided to book a staycation at the Andaz Liverpool Street before the offer expired two weeks ago. In one of the more bizarre coincidences of my life, a few days later I was invited to Ryanair’s press conference at the hotel, on the same day.

With Hyatt due to re-open the old Crowne Plaza The City as Hyatt Regency Blackfriars later this year, I thought it was worth taking a look at Hyatt’s older City hotel. We will take a look at the new Hyatt Regency as soon as we can – the current opening date, which has slipped multiple times, is 22nd December.

The hotel has a bit of history, including part ownership by Terence Conran in the early noughties. It was turned into Andaz in 2006.

The hotel website is here.

Where is the Andaz London?

There is just one Andaz in London, located right next to London Liverpool Street Station. It occupies the Grade II listed Great Eastern Hotel building, built in 1884 to serve passengers from the railway lines which predominantly serve the East of England. It was built on the site formerly occupied by Bedlam, the first hospital for the mentally ill.

The location is excellent. You obviously have the train station right next door, but it also straddles the City (the CBD for non-UK readers) and Shoreditch with its myriad bars, restaurants and pubs.

Whilst the Andaz was one of the first hotels in the area there has been a spate of new openings in recent years as Shoreditch continues its upwards trajectory as the home of trendy techies. A Pan Pacific has opened in a new tower just opposite, whilst Hilton has opened its first UK Canopy (review here) and Hyatt opened its budget-but-trendy Hyatt Place London City East (review here) near Aldgate.

In terms of transport connections, you have easy access to the Central Line, plus the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines.

It is also one of the stations for the newly opened Elizabeth Line, which also makes it one of the best hotels for the Soho and the West End. The journey time is five minutes to Tottenham Court Road, and when the line fully opens on the 6th November you’ll have a direct rail link to Heathrow, no changes needed.

Inside the Andaz Liverpool Street hotel

Because of the heritage of the building the main entrance is actually on the side, down Liverpool Street itself, rather than the busier Bishopsgate.

You’re immediately greeted by a doorman and the the lovely scent of T London’s ‘Darjeeling’ fragrance, as well as a lovely, lobby styled with lots of dark, rich colours:

I immediately checked in and was offered a drink – tea, coffee or water – whilst I did so. With Hyatt Globalist you are also entitled to a 4pm late checkout and was asked if I wanted to make use of this.

Rooms at the Andaz London Liverpool Street hotel

I booked a bog standard queen room knowing that booking with Emyr would get me an upgrade or, if available, a standard suite thanks to Globalist status. The front desk gave me a King room. Although it appeared that there were junior suites still available for cash, I decided not to fight it as my room was exceptionally large anyway.

As a result of its period conversion, the Andaz is a bit of a warren and finding your way around isn’t always the simplest. I ended up taking the lifts to the second floor where there’s a big, modern atrium with funky circular cut out letting you peer all the way down into the lobby:

…. before walking down a corridor and a small flight of stairs to get to my room.

The room was impressive. As you enter there is a wardrobe to your right with black wooden doors, whilst the bathroom is on the left, with a porthole in the door:

The wardrobe features robes, slippers, ironing board, shoe shine kit, safe etc:

To the left of the wardrobe is the mini bar. One of the Andaz brand standards is that the mini bar is free and restocked daily. In this case, it came with two bottles of still and sparkling water each, apple and orange juice, a bag of crisps and some cookies:

Four Nespresso pods for the Nespresso machine are also included.

The bathroom is a good size, although not massive.

It features white subway tiling with a black marble shelf above the sink that elevates it slightly:

The sink annoyingly doesn’t drain that fast, which I now realise I forgot to mention at check-out.

A big bath (long enough for me to stretch out in!) is at the end:

The only criticism I have is the shower, which is in a raised cubicle. This feels oddly unpremium for a hotel of this calibre and is a bit claustrophobic when showering. Even adding a frosted glass panel, rather than tiled sidewall would have helped.

Toiletries are by T London and smell divine. Definitely one of my new favourites!

Once you’re out of the mini corridor the room opens up and it is massive. It has by far the highest ceilings of any hotel I’ve stayed at – they must be 4m or more:

The king bed is right there, with floating bedside tables on both sides:

Connectivity is good with both a UK three-prong and USB socket.

Turn around and you’ll see an armchair, massive TV (although not massive enough given the size of the room!) and good sized desk:

and

Given London hotel rooms normally barely have enough room to turn around in this felt like almost too much space. There is enough floor space for 3 or 4 people to do yoga!

The vast windows flood the room with light, so despite the fairly dark decor it never felt particularly dark as a whole. The only comment I would make is that the windows are absolutely filthy and in desperate need of a clean, both on the outside and within the two secondary an tertiary glazing. At least there wasn’t any road noise.

As a whole, the styling of the room is fairly muted, with lots of greys and darker colours. It’s surprisingly inoffensive for an Andaz – when I stayed at the Andaz Amsterdam, for example, I had a wallpaper print of a massive fish. The Andaz London Liverpool Street is almost boring in comparison, albeit the good kind of boring.

Dining at Andaz London Liverpool Street

The Andaz offers a number of dining options, which I’ll quickly summarise here. You have:

• Lady Abercorn’s Pub & Kitchen
• Rake’s Cafe Bar
• Eastway Brasserie
• Miyako

Both Lady Abercorn’s and Rake’s are in beautiful, heritage rooms which are incredibly stylish. I was hoping to have dinner at Miyako’s but only found out on arrival that it was closed after the bank holiday, so I ended up going to Rake’s instead which was fairly average – certainly nothing special, although with a very sweet Romanian waiter we had a nice chat with about Romanian food.

I managed to grab lunch at Miyako’s the next day, which was fab – a teeny tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant with less than 20 seats and delicious Japanese food, so I’d definitely recommend that if you’re staying here.

Eastway Brasserie serves all-day dining and is also where breakfast is served. This was my second time having breakfast at the Andaz – the first time was with a good friend who was staying – and I have to say I continue to enjoy breakfast here.

Last time, I asked if they could make me eggs royale and they said no, despite offering poached eggs on demand and having smoked salmon at the buffet. They did finally relent when I queried if they had hollandaise sauce and why they couldn’t do it for me if they had other a la carte options on the menu, but it was a bit like pulling teeth, particularly for a five star hotel.

This time round, the provided an a la carte menu (no extra charge) with eggs benedict and eggs royale some of the options. I asked if they did eggs royale and they said no problem, so that’s a big service improvement in my book.

Here they are, in all their delicious glory:

There is also an excellent buffet. You get all the usual full English items, including bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, hash browns, tomatoes and mushrooms:

There’s also a range of breads, pastries and a honeycomb:

Cold cuts, including various salamis, salmon, smoked mackerel (I think) and other bits and bobs including stuffed peppers and guacamole:

Plus cheeses and special hanging salami:

…. and your usual range of cereals, yoghurts, fruit and juices:

I always really like the breakfast here and would definitely come back.

Conclusion

I have to admit I had a really good stay at the Andaz Liverpool Street. The exceptional location makes it a no-brainer if you’re travelling for business or leisure, particularly with the new Elizabeth Line.

Rooms are very spacious, and although I imagine each room is slightly different since this is a historic building, I have seen previous rooms that were equally large. If it wasn’t so big I definitely would have pushed harder for a junior suite upgrade with Globalist status.

Prices typically start at around £350 per night. The Andaz London Liverpool Street is a Category 5 hotel so you’ll need between 24,000 and 27,000 points. You can find out more, and book, on the hotel website here.

If you are booking for cash, I strong recommend using a Hyatt Prive travel agent, such as our partner Emyr Thomas. You get the following extra benefits which, at an Andaz, are available even on one night stays:

• $25 to $100 hotel credit per stay, depending on brand (Andaz is $100)
• One category room upgrade confirmed within 24 hours of booking
• Daily full breakfast for two
• Early check-in (from 9am) and late check-out (to 4pm) subject to availability
• Welcome gift and letter

As you imagine, I had a fun time trying to get the bill up to £500 to trigger the £200 of American Express cashback – especially as breakfast was already included and I had an extra $100 of credit for booking via Emyr.

Bookings via Emyr will be identical to the ‘Best Flexible Rate’ showing on hyatt.com. You can contact him with booking enquiries here and learn more about Hyatt Prive here.

PS. Rob adds: ‘It seems that no-one told Rhys about the huge masonic hall that was found when the building was renovated in 2005. It had been bricked up since 1939. I covered that story here.”

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