Comfort and luxury await you at The Grand Hotel, York
I checked into The Grand Hotel in York at 9am in the morning. Not because I was eager to get to the spa (although more on that later) but because I needed to get away from the terrible experience the night before at the hotel I had originally booked.
The relief I felt from the moment we arrived. Wayne, the porter who greeted us as we pulled up to the hotel, couldn’t have made us feel more welcome. They say you have three seconds to make a positive impression; Wayne certainly achieved that. He is possibly one of the hotel’s finest assets: warm, friendly, genuine and attentive, he has a memory for the small but important details. I’ll give you an example, we took Mrs HB’s mother here for her birthday recently and Wayne, not having see us for three months, remembered us mentioning we were coming back for her birthday. Armed with a branded pin badge and a jovial ‘happy birthday’, my mother-in-law was both pleasantly surprised and tickled pink. She hasn’t stopped talking about it since! Well done Wayne.
Anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent. As you arrive at the hotel’s doors, you can opt for a valet parking service (a surcharge applies) and your car will be taken to a secure, private underground carpark and your luggage take to your room after check-in.
They call this hotel The Grand Hotel because you immediately get that impression as you walk into the reception area. High ceilings, beautifully inlaid floors and stunning floral arrangements make you stand up a little straighter and want to behave. But the reality is the staff are welcoming and friendly, and want to do their very best for you. Nothing seems to be too much bother.
Turn left from reception and you’ll find yourself heading towards the bar or dining room. Turn right from reception and you’ll be on your way to a very comfortable stay. There are two parts to the hotel bedrooms: the original building with grand wooden doors (a throwback to this impressive Edwardian past as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway), and the new wing with 100 more contemporary and stylish rooms.
Whilst the bedrooms in the original part of the hotel are large and spacious, they do have a more dated feel to them. Darker carpets, darker wood furniture, and a more traditional feel overall. But one thing these rooms do have in common with the brighter, more modern rooms in the new wing, are the beds. They are huge and super comfortable with two pillow options, and I haven’t slept so well in a hotel as I did at The Grand.
Rooms all offer the standard tea/coffee facilities but they have sourced local brands and offer a cafetière for your first coffee of the day, which is very pleasant. Expect a huge smart TV that has plenty of channels to while away a few hours, and Molton Brown toiletries to luxuriate with in the bathroom. Subtle lighting in the room all adds to the relaxing atmosphere and clearly the design team thought this through when putting together their vision for the customer experience.
And you don’t have to suffer the cold-feet experience in the morning. Soft carpeting in the bedroom and underfloor heating in the bathrooms all add to the warmth and comfort of your stay here.
There was only one thing that I found a touch irksome however, but it’s a minor point… on the back of the bathroom door there’s only one peg to hang a used towel. Fine if you’re a solo traveller but Mrs HB was forced to hang it elsewhere and it didn’t really dry properly as a result. Otherwise the room really does have some lovely touches. The desks are actually vanity tables so you can sit down whilst drying your hair or putting on your makeup.
The beds have inbuilt reading lights and switches to access the rest of the hotel room without having to fumble about in the dark if you need to get up I the middle of the night. The blackout curtains are truly blackout!
Learn a new skill or simply kick back and relax
Aside from the lovely comfortable bedrooms, there’s plenty more to discover at The grand. There’s a spa which has gone through an extensive refurbishment and now offers a swimming pool, sauna and steam room, the use of which is all included as part of your stay. And you can also book a wide range of treatments for an additional cost. When you check in to the hotel it’s worth checking for availability of the spa and treatments because they do get busy in peak seasons and, because of Covid, they have more limited availability. You can read more about my spa experience here.
If you love to cook and fancy doing something a little bit different during your stay in York, you can book a course at the new and swish Cookery School at The Grand? Opened in 2019 and led by the fabulous chef Andrew Dixon, the Cookery School offers both half day and full day classes that focus on baking and international cuisines. Mrs HB and her mother are both fabulous cooks so and it wasn’t something that appealed to me or the father-in-law (the bar seemed far more interesting!) but it would make a great gift for someone, or even just an opportunity to learn something new.
Bespoke cocktails and delicious food
Bar 1906 – the central meeting point for guests of the hotel – offers a good vibe with large leather chairs to relax and enjoy the large selection of cocktails, beers and spirits with friends and family. There’s even a specialist whisky bar if you’re there for a while and daring enough to try some of the rarer whiskies from around the world!
The cocktails on offer are not your standard list of Cosmos and Caiprinhas. They have take the time to develop a cocktail menu that delivers something a bit different. The mixologist for Bar 1906 is highly skilled and spent a number of years working for Richard Branson on Necker Island before it was destroyed in the hurricanes of 2017, so he knows a thing or two about creating bespoke cocktails. In fact, he made Mrs HB a delicious cocktail which we named after him, consisting of gin, orange juice, pink peppercorn and Himalayan salt. Yum! But if you want to try something from the cocktail menu, the Toki Time is definitely worth a try: Japanese whiskey, plum liqueur and cherry bitters, gently stirred over ice and served in a chilled coupe glass.
There is a bar menu offering locally sourced (except for the oysters which come from Lindisfarne) small plates, sandwiches and sharing platters. You can also ask for some crisps if you just want something to nibble whilst you sip your delicious cocktails; nothing seems to be too much effort. In fact, because I wanted a vodka with that ‘ghighenergy drink’ that must not be mentioned (and wasn’t stocked behind the bar), the bar manager discreetly disappeared and got some from a local shop. That shows initiative and a willingness to deliver over and above customer expectations; I applaud you.
If you’re hungry and want to have a proper sit-down meal, you’ll need to book a table in The Rise restaurant. If the hotel is at capacity, you might find that turning up without a booking leaves you waiting for a while but they will do their best to accommodate you. I’ve been here twice for dinner now and if you read the reviews online about this place, they’re mixed. Whilst it’s not the best restaurant I’ve ever dined in in terms of ambience, the food is very good and beautifully presented. The portions are good sizes too, so you may want to have the debate about starter and main or main and desert before you sit down and order; we were satisfied after just two courses. The wait staff are very good and highly attentive. And both times I’ve been here, we had the same waiter – Pedro – which is a sign that the staff themselves are happy in their work.
My only criticism would be the lighting in the restaurant; it feels a little bit too bright for an evening meal. Turn down the lights a touch and add a few candles on the tables perhaps dot some of those amazing flower displays from reception around the room to lift the atmosphere!
When all is said and done, I’ve had a couple of very good stays here. With General Manager Simon Mahon steering the ship for just over two years now, it seems the hotel is on the right track. Standards are high (as you would expect for a 5-star hotel) and Simon is certainly making a positive impact here.
It might not yet be ‘London 5-star’ – perhaps you don’t need that in Yorkshire – but it’s well on the road to becoming one of my favourites.
The Hospitality Boss Rating
Overall rating (out of 5)
