Business Travel Guide—London, England
Despite heavy competition and the restructuring of the economic system, London remains one of the world's key financial centers. The prospect of the 2012 Olympic Games has added another significant factor to a city that thrives on financial and business services, tourism and high-tech companies. London is home to around 500 foreign banks and most of Fortune's Global 500 companies. London's central role in the world has brought an ironic twist to the capital as the recent skyscrapers of Canary Wharf are being challenged by new and planned glass and steel headquarter buildings, which until the huge development of Canary Wharf was London's centuries-old, traditional business center.
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Facts
to Know Before You Go |
Currency: Pound Sterling
Exchange money at an airport within the U.S. or in England once you arrive. Airports and many tourist attractions house various exchange booths such as Thomas Cooke, but for the best rate, use an ATM or get cash back on purchases using a debit card. Although the European Euro is not widely used, it is possible to spend the Euro at the airport and larger retailers, hotels and restaurants in town.
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Transportation:
Public Transportation: With the Underground, or "tube" as locals call it, and an extensive railway and bus system, public transportation is an excellent way to navigate London. While the tube does run from Heathrow to central London via the Piccadilly line, the trip will take a little over an hour. Fortunately, the Heathrow Express offers high-speed non-stop service to London's Paddington station. The cost is £16.50 and it takes just 15 minutes. For £16.90, passengers can also speed their way from London's Victoria Station to Gatwick in 30 minutes on the Gatwick Express.
Taxi Cab: In London, you have black cabs and mini-cabs. "Black cabs" can be any color but all reflect the iconic shape of a historic London cab and offer metered service. A trip from Heathrow to central London will cost somewhere between £45 and £60. From Gatwick, expect to pay £60 to £80.
Minicabs, which may come in any shape, make or model, are not metered, so negotiate a price before setting out. While mincabs aren't licensed to pick up passengers at the airport, they can be arranged for airport drop-off. A typical fare from Central London to Heathrow is around £35; Gatwick £55. |
Information:
Both
the Financial
Times (daily) and The
Economist (weekly) are global business
papers with extensive UK editions featuring local
business news.
The
Times and Daily
Telegraph are both mainstream dailies that
include daily business sections. On Sundays, look
for The Sunday Times and The Sunday
Telegraph.
Nearly a dozen other papers such as The Daily
Mail, The Guardian,
The Independent and The Evening
Standard cover some business news. |
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 For more on travel in the capital, see our guide to the Best of London. |
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Andaz, the hotel that replaced the former Great Eastern Hotel, is perfectly located just beside Liverpool Street Station. With this in mind, the owner/managing company Hyatt runs a top hotel particularly aimed at business travelers. There are five restaurants, including the newly renovated 1901, 4 bars, 14 event rooms and 267 guest rooms. Rates include breakfast, free WiFi, local calls, a healthy mini bar, in-room movies and most usefully, laundry for that special business meeting. All rooms come with flat screen TVs and direct dial telephones. It's easy to get both around the city business area and out to Canary Wharf from here.
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The flagship of the rapidly expanding small chain, this modern hotel is only a fifteen minute walk from the West End but away from the tourist crowds. The City Café, the hotel's on-site restaurant, serves good modern cuisine while its bar, the stylish Millbank Lounge, makes a good night spot. Best rooms are Club or Suites with spectacular views; there are additional benefits like iMac computers and flexible check in and out according to availability. All rooms are sleek and offer free WiFi access and direct dial phones.
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In the heart of Canary Wharf, London's major new
financial center, the hotel's skyscraper surroundings
will make you feel like you're in Los Angeles.
Only the incredible views of the city of London remind
you where you are. Designed for a corporate clientele,
the property is stark but functional. Rooms are large,
with pale wood flooring and simple American walnut furniture.
Each is equipped with every imaginable bit of technology:
a flat-screen television, high-speed Internet access,
CD player, play station and a laptop safe. The restaurant, Quadrato offers agreeably authentic Northern Italian cuisine.
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This modern hotel is situated at Hyde Park Corner where Piccadilly meets Park Lane. Following a late 2007 makeover (to the tune of more than $110 million), 150 guest rooms and Neoclassical suites are more vibrant than ever in linen and damask. An additional 297 rooms have been added, along with new health facilities and an Elemis Spa. Sixty elegant designer suites (The London Suite, The Cinema Suite, The Wellington Suite, etc.) reflect London's fashionable lifestyle. Luxury suites feature drawing rooms and butler service. The penthouse, a.k.a. The Palace, has a large drawing room, a master bedroom with marbled bath facilities, and a private entrance with a lobby. The Club on the dedicated seventh floor has 46 bedrooms and suites, private registration, shower room facilities and a lounge with separate meeting space. Particularly favored by business people, the purpose-built Video Conferencing Suite is ideal for top business meetings; the business centre boasts four private meeting rooms. The excellent Cookbook Café provides more casual dining and occasional cookery events. The eponymous Theo Randall adds culinary flair in the form of superb Italian regional cooking.
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Ever since One Aldwych opened, it has managed to retain its well-deserved popularity despite competition. Located on the edge of Covent Garden, where the West End meets the City, this property has equal appeal to the theater-going tourist and the high-powered business executive. The Edwardian building was once home to The Morning Post, but while the building's exterior features have been retained, interior design has been transformed to mix contemporary simplicity and classic English style. The result is unassuming but luxurious. Technology, however, isn't understated with direct dial fax and phone lines, wireless high-speed Internet and CD players in every room. The hotel boasts a world-class fitness center, two restaurants—the fine dining Axis and the more casual Indigo, a lobby bar which makes a popular meeting place, as well as the Cinnamon Bar, which offers coffee and light snacks. |
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Modern French
17/20
£££££ |
The Dorchester has always been one of London's grandest hotels and now it has a chef to match in the form of Alain Ducasse. The 80-seat room, designed by Patrick Jouin, is beautiful—a soothing, sophisticated space with light wood panels and natural materials in varying shades of tan and cream. The walls are decorated with silk green and yellow buttons, the tables are a lesson in luxurious settings, and there's a private dining area for six, set apart with sparkly fiber optic strands. The menu offers a range of the maestro's signature dishes, though "reinterpreted with a modern touch" for London. Seasonal, fresh British and French ingredients are used to good effect by executive chef Jocelyn Herland, who comes from Alain Ducasse at Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris.
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French/Bistro
15/20
£££££ |
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If you want to impress with your London savvy and your business credit card is creaking then book at Galvin-Bistrot de Luxe which is now high up on London lists, despite its odd location. Baker Street is a river of one-way traffic and it never scored highly on London's gourmet trail. But the arrival of chef-brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin transformed this once-blighted site. The restaurant has a self-assured air, decorated with dark wood paneling, a wooden floor and leather banquettes lining the walls. The menu is a lesson in bourgeois French tradition that many chefs could do well to emulate. Simple dishes are prepared with love, as in the terrine of ham hock and Old Spot pork with a classic celeriac rémoulade. Here are classics that you would be happy to find in a Paris restaurant like confit of pork cheeks, with nutty green Puy lentils and gutsy saucisson Lyonnais. Equal care is taken with desserts like blood orange parfait with a delicate Earl Grey granita. The wine list is fair on pricing and has a section of fine wines. Three-course lunch is £15.50, 3-course dinner Mon-Sat. 6 p.m.-7 p.m. is £17.50.
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Gordon Ramsay is one of Britain's best chefs; he is also the highest earning chef in the world, netting between £12-£15 million a year. But the fame, the TV appearances, his growing restaurant empire and more haven't dented the reputation of this venue which still attracts London's gourmets. The décor is wonderful, a glorious Art Deco room with its areas gently broken up. Customers come for both the top cooking and the value for money of the set £30 lunch menu. On the a la carte menu, go for marinated, seared loin of venison with celeriac rémoulade and toasted hazelnuts and Parmesan tuile providing a contrast—and that's just a starter. Seabass—line-caught of course comes with smoked aubergine purée, sautéed courgettes and red pepper jus. Desserts are comfortingly familiar, and the apple done three ways—as parfait, bavarois and tart is a masterpiece. The cheese board does not carry a supplement. Combine business with pleasure and take the Chef's Table which seats up to six and offers a special dinner menu that includes canapés and a glass of Champagne. It might just secure that business deal. The wine list is good and the service as impeccable as you would expect.
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Contemporary European
17/20
£££££ |
There is always a sense of discovery on reaching The Greenhouse, which comes from its delightful and unusual location, tucked away in Mayfair and reached through a plant-filled courtyard. Once inside, you're instantly seduced by a rich décor of neutral colors set off with sharp green leather chairs and dark wooden floors. But it's the top-notch food from Antonin Bonnet that customers come for again and again. Seasonal ingredients are used with imagination. Take the starter of pan-fried foie gras with figs, the richness counterbalanced by sharp Sicilian lemons made into a marmalade, goat cheese and basil leaves; or the tenderest lamb, prepared with ingredients and tastes that could overpower but are used with the greatest skill so they complement—teriyaki sauce, smoked eel, aubergine babaganoush and orange powder.
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If you want to impress a business client, take them to the restaurant that is on everyone's hot list. Hélène Darroze has seduced London with elegant ease. Her success is helped by the £70-million refurbishment of the grande dame of hotels, The Connaught. Dark wood paneling, comfortable chairs to sink into, gorgeous tableware and linen and a hugely generous staff-to-customer ratio pamper and spoil the clientele. The chef comes from Landes in the southwest of France, her background reflected both in the ingredients and a rustic honesty in what is very sophisticated cooking. Naturally, all the frills are here, and amuse-bouches, treats between courses and chocolates come as part of the very expensive package. Starters range from a duck foie gras caramelized with a blow torch and enlivened with spices, cherries and grapes to lobster ravioli with subtle tandoori spices and citrus flavours. Darroze has mastered Asian spicing in a way that many of her fellow French chefs have not been able to do, though wild Irish salmon stays firmly mainstream and comes with green Puy lentils, carrots and spring onions in a chicken stock with a smoked bacon emulsion. Desserts are simply sublime, and include a dark chocolate cream with a bitter chocolate sorbet and hot chocolate sauce, lightened with a lavender praline. The wine list is impressive, majoring on France.
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Donmar Warehouse
41 Earlham St., WC2
0870-060-6624
0871-297-5458
www.donmarwarehouse.com
The Donmar Warehouse has always been one of the most exciting and impressive smaller theaters. With only 250 seats and in a warehouse setting in Covent Garden it puts on the kind of exciting, star-studded performances that rival any of London's big venues.
Donmar West End
Wyndham's
Charing Cross Road, WC2
0844-482-5120
www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk
Donmar Warehouse has also taken over Wyndham's Theatre in the West End for a truly star-studded series of plays which started with Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov, the first play by Chekhov to be produced in Russia and written when he was just 27. The 2009 season is a gem. Until March 7 2009, Derek Jacobi stars in Twelfth Night. Then comes a season which includes Madame de Sade, written by the Japanese Yukio Mishima starring Dame Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike and to finish—on a high note of course, Jude Law in Hamlet.
Borough Market
Located between Winchester Walk, Stoney St., Bedale St. and Borough High St.
020-7407-1002
London Bridge Tube
www.boroughmarket.org.uk
The market is a historic site, a market place way before the Romans discovered Londinium. It's been a hardy survivor through the centuries and today, thanks to a charity set up to preserve it in 1999, continues to be one of "London's Larders." It comes alive on Thursday through Saturday when the splendid cast iron building and the surrounding streets are full of traders of organic and home-made foods. Shop until your basket is creaking, then go to any of the many restaurants that dot the area. Start with breakfast at Roast; try coffee and fabulous pâtisserie at Brindisa or go for a drink at the small drinking venue, the Rake, with its comprehensive beer list.
British
Museum
Great Russell St.
020-7323-8000
020-7323-8299
Tottenham Court Rd./Goodge St./Russell Sq. Tube, Holborn
www.britishmuseum.org
In
1753, the British Museum became the world’s first
public museum. After a massive refurbishment in the
1990s, the museum added a dramatic new exhibition space
in the Great Court and launched its way into the twenty-first
century. There are so many treasures—the Elgin
Marbles, Egyptian mummies, the Portland Vase, relics from the Sutton
Hoo ship burial, the glorious Lindisfarne gospels—it
is impossible to see them all in one visit. The best
way to explore the museum is to pick up a map in the
front hall and choose one or two particular galleries.
And then go back for more.
Lab
12 Old Compton St.
020-7437-7820
Leicester Sq/Tottenham Court Rd. Tube
www.lab-townhouse.com
Lab (which stands for London Academy of Bartending) is in Soho, an area which holds its own as one of London's prime nightclub hotspots despite hefty competition from newer districts. And Lab achieves the same—it's a chic, highly charged, two-story cocktail joint with a legendary drinks menu that runs to 30 pages and a clientele seemingly determined to drink their way through it. The decor is retro; the DJs pump out the sound.
London Walks
020-7624-3978
020-7794-1764
www.walks.com
Whether a BBC broadcaster, eminent archaeologist or professional actor leads your tour, you are guaranteed to be shown the secret side of London by some of the most engaging guides in town. Two-hour tours are offered seven days a week and reveal the hidden worlds of literary greats like Shakespeare, Dickens and Oscar Wilde or other legendary Londoners like Jack the Ripper. They do a Beatles Walk, Harry Potter walks and others for children and now can take you on a day trip out of London. Or just join them for a pint of Guinness on a traditional pub crawl. No need to book, just grab a schedule and turn up at the designated hour. (Author: Mary Anne Evans) |
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Going to Great Britain? Check out our Guide. |
(Updated: 04/21/09 KR)
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