Review: Hart Shoreditch, another impressive Hilton Curio Collection hotel

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Mouse says:

  21 Feb21 February 06:43

  £9.99! Was that in the “special interest” section?

  • Rhys says:

    21 Feb21 February 17:21

    For blockbusters!

• Kit Aspen says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:22

  I found this hotel to have major service issues.

  Gold benefits are not respected, with no upgrade given despite availability. We were not proactively offered gold breakfast, and when pushed they only said we could have it on one room in our two room booking, despite both rooms having a gold status member. The manager came out to confirm this (I couldn’t find any confirmation of this in Hilton literature… a weird hill for the hotel to die on).

  We next found out that they consider their entire lobby to be part of the restaurant, despite the fact they don’t serve food in the lobby areas (or if they did, there was no menu and nothing was offered). When we sat after check-in to finish the sandwich we had been eating on the way over to the hotel, we were rudely told to immediately go to our room or step outside the door and eat.

  When we questioned the service issues, their response was that as a Curio they don’t have to follow any Hilton service guidelines…

  There are a lot of hotels at the same price point and hard-product standard nearby, you might as well go to one that also has a good soft-product too.

  • Peter K says:

    21 Feb21 February 09:16

    They are correct about breakfast for gold status. If you wanted it for the second room you need to book it from the account of the other gold status person.

  • Blenz101 says:

    21 Feb21 February 10:18

    I wouldn’t consider it a service issue for the hotel to have a policy of not allowing guests to eat and drink external food in any of the hotels public areas.

    I think most people would complain in the opposite direction if they were staying at a hotel and the lobby was being used as a picnic site for the surrounding takeaways.

    Gold upgrades can be to a preferred room, so you may not have avoided the worst room in your category even if you didn’t move up a room type.

    As Peter K says, you would need to boom separately to get two rooms with two free breakfasts so that wasn’t down to the hotel either.

  • JDB says:

    21 Feb21 February 10:43

    I’m sure the hotel would get lots of complaints if people ate their outside takeaway food in the lobby. It also just makes the place look rather scruffy. Most people would find it more appropriate to finish the sandwich before entering the hotel; it simply isn’t a hotel ‘service’ issue.

  • Mouse says:

    21 Feb21 February 10:51

    Finishing a sandwich is hardly the same as eating a hot takeaway meal! I can understand that the hotel management wouldn’t want the latter but to make a point of instructing a guest to stop eating a sandwich is churlish and inhospitable.

    • Blenz101 says:

      21 Feb21 February 13:26

      What if the sandwich is hot meatball sub, or toasted on that disgusting smelling Parmesan bread? A KFC tower burger is just a chicken sandwich? If a sandwich is OK from Greggs then what is the issue with enjoying a sausage roll and a coffee with it as a meal deal? If that person can eat a cold Tesco sandwich why can’t I enjoy my Burrito.

      The hotel shouldn’t have to make judgment calls on the contents of external food people are entitled enough to eat in their public spaces.

    • Lady London says:

      21 Feb21 February 22:45

      No, it’s a tacky thing to eat in the lobby. At all. Even if you’re just finishing something or whatever.

  • Kit Aspen says:

    21 Feb21 February 11:31

    To the comments about the fact that the Hilton rules are correct for the gold breakfast, fair enough, it’s a frustrating rule when your combined booking is no cheaper than 2 separate, but fair enough, the hotel applied the rules to the letter of the policy.

    To those that interpret someone finishing their sandwich as some kind of McDonalds party at every seat in the lobby… Really?

    I’m sat on a train right now finishing the coffee I brought at the station. Should I also get off because theoretically someone could be slurping a pot noodle in every seat?

    Standard service is what you expect at any hotel; you expect them to interpret the rules, no more, and that’s fair. Great service is going above and beyond to delight customers (so long as the customer is not taking the piss). When I pay the premium price point of a Curio, I expect great service, otherwise I might as well book a clean room at a premier inn where I pay the price point for standard service.

    • Blenz101 says:

      21 Feb21 February 13:37

      I think if the hotel had a buffet they would likely have just turned a blind eye to the actual entitlement to a free breakfast. Where they are processing food al la carte it does make more sense they aren’t happy to just write off cheques that the guest isn’t entitled to receive for free.

      And nobody said anything about a McDonald’s party but just fell on the side of it being unreasonable to expect to eat external food and drink in a hotel lobby. The contents of your half eaten sandwiches are rather irrelevant and not for the hotel to inspect to decide how acceptable they are.

    • BJ says:

      21 Feb21 February 15:47

      Guests who paid cash or points for their (premium) rooms of choice or who got to Lifetime Diamond status the hard way would be very pleased indeed to read your initial comments.

  • Chris says:

    22 Feb22 February 22:25

    Re the lobby situation. I had a similar experience at the same hotel regarding a pret coffee.

    The best bit, the coffee was almost finished and I was wondering when the bar would open (it was still closed in the afternoon) when a member of staff rather rudely interrupted my call. The rest of the team on the call thought I had been accosted by someone slightly unhinged! The whole situation was bizarre, left a bad impression, and ultimately put me off using the hotel.

• Mikel says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:53

  Stayed at the Hart 4 times last year and I agree, it’s a lovely hotel. If you think the junior suite is small, try staying in a standard guest room. Pricing can fluctuate from £180 to £400 pn in a standard room. If you want to eat at the Gloria you need to book several weeks in advance. We’ve never managed to get a table. Blues kitchen (5 mins away) is def worth a visit

  • Joseph Abou-Jaoude says:

    21 Feb21 February 15:49

    I work in the area, would highly recommend manteca as the go to restaurant choice. Much better food than Gloria (IMO)

• planeconcorde says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:57

  A stool instead of a proper chair at the desk is a deal breaker for me too.

• Stu_N says:

  21 Feb21 February 07:59

  +1, great hotel. Very well put together hotel and great staff all three times we have stayed.

  The skylight suite (covid bargain) was great but the standard rooms are grand too, as @Mikel says small and often odd shapes but very comfortable and well soundproofed. It’s our go-to place in E London.

• ianM says:

  21 Feb21 February 08:19

  Rubbish breakfast and no exec lounge dealbreakers for me. Plenty other cheaper Hilton options.

  • Mouse says:

    21 Feb21 February 08:32

    What is the benefit of an exec lounge in a central London hotel? Surely all of the facilities/amenities can be found (and probably to a much better quality) locally?

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      21 Feb21 February 08:38

      Free booze I guess! I often like working in exec lounges as throughout the day they tend to be quiet but most fill up when the free booze is out.

    • Rob says:

      21 Feb21 February 08:42

      If you’re settling in for a night of working to catch up on what you couldn’t do during the day (because you were at a trade show, conference, meetings etc) then a 10 minute trip to the lounge to get your evening emeal is what you need. I normally end up working until 1am ish when away if I have stuff on during the day – not entirely sure why I’d want to blow a couple of hours sitting in a restaurant on my own?

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        21 Feb21 February 08:46

        That’s a good point too. When I’m travelling for work then I don’t want to sit by myself in a restaurant. The lounge usually offers sufficient for an evening meal particularly if you have had a breakfast and a lunch already

      • Bagoly says:

        23 Feb23 February 09:17

        Quite a few hotels do still have room service for that.

        • Rob says:

          23 Feb23 February 09:31

          Oddly my enthusiasm for getting a lukewarm club sandwich for £35 inc delivery charge, tray charge, service etc after a 45 minute wait is slim …

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  21 Feb21 February 08:22

  I did have this place booked once but they had to cancel my reservation due to covid restrictions, hopefully I’ll get to stay there at some point. As for breakfast options if what you got was free (as a gold/diamond) I wonder if it was a cut down version of the full menu.

  When the Lincoln Plaza (Curio by Canary Wharf, currently temporarily closed) first opened there was a big a la carte menu free to all diamonds as well as having more hot dishes on it there was also more drinks options including some nice smoothies. A few months later when I returned I was handed a much smaller menu (still had the full English on it though!) but I noticed the full menu was still there and was handed to some people. Turned out those who had to pay were given the full menu. I still ordered off the full menu and said I was willing to pay for it but they never charged me in the end.

  But it’s also worth remembering that there’s no such thing as a typical Curio as they are just a collection of different hotels. There’s not supposed to be consistency but they have to be unique and to a high standard.

  • Stu_N says:

    21 Feb21 February 08:38

    Actually I think they had a Gold breakfast menu when I was there, that rings a bell. We aren’t huge breakfast eaters so worked just fine for us and the food was very good quality.

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      21 Feb21 February 08:44

      Thanks for confirming. So if there’s nothing I want on the free menu I can ask if they have a larger menu of paid options I can look at as well. I quite like to get something different to the full English when there’s not a buffet so it being missing from the free options is not a problem for me

• Michael C says:

  21 Feb21 February 08:29

  That b/fast is such a disappointment – no real “lounging round with a newspaper for a couple of hours while grazing” there!
  The rest looks pretty appealing, though.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.