‘Hotels can, if they are done well, put you in a good mood – and this one did’

When my latte landed at breakfast, I knew it was going straight off to Instagram. I seethe at coffee served in a glass vessel, but this took the biscuit.

It was a glass without a handle, and someone had designed a stem that sat off to one side. I don’t want asymmetry with my caffeine, or any kind of glass. It’s hot liquid. Just throw it in my face, why don’t you?

The jury was in fairly fast from social media – this object was an abomination. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many DMs, so fast. It haunted me all day. Here’s a new luxury hotel, a heartbeat from Bond Street tube station and the Elizabeth Line, close to all the lovely stuff in Marylebone, and they go and do that.

There’s a lot of ‘Design’ going on at the BoTree, almost all of it beautiful. There is, you may not be surprised to learn, an overall motif of flora and forestry, and most things that need handles have them. The mood is haute modernity.

The bedrooms have pale ridged-wood panels, monochrome marble and smile-inducing walls finished with abstract pink shapes. I had a corner room, with a balcony of Moorish-goes-space-age grids around it, and a view down to the HMV mothership on Oxford Street.

Hotels can, if they are done well, put you in a good mood, and this one did. It made me feel a great London feeling.

I arrived before my husband, and talked about fashion photography over a glass of champagne with the woman checking me in.

I enjoyed it so much that we both forgot I was actually checking in. When I got to my room, I felt I was in a happy place. I love interiors that are overtly modern in a fresh (and well executed) way.

The BoTree has superb lighting, and glossy in-room gizmos. Surprising, then, that after dinner I tried to put something on the TV and found it impossible. I don’t want terrestrial channels in 2024, I want to be able to immediately stream from my myriad accounts, but two different laptops offered nothing but a black screen on the room’s monitor when we attempted Chromecast.

But back to the good stuff, most notably downstairs, in LAVO, which would be a significant restaurant opening in London regardless of the hotel it’s attached to.

There are LAVOs in numerous cities around the world, and it’s a sibling to Hakkasan and Yauatcha. If you can imagine an Italian relative to those, you’re picturing the right thing. It’s glam, and big, but still quite cool; not too Sexy Fish.

Because it belongs to a business that employs more than 250 staff, they are legally bound to detail the calories per dish on the menu, which is always as welcome as the photo album on your iPhone offering up a montage of memories punctuated with deceased loved ones.

Now, I’m fat, and try as much as I can to stay well under 2,000 calories a day. There are indulgences (hence, fat), but I’m always surprised when the reality is spelled out to me.

I started out modestly here, with Hamachi crudo (483 calories), but the sommelier had opened a bottle of Lagrein, a Syrah-like varietal I was unfamiliar with. It was rich and deep red, complex, fruitful and slightly spicy.

It needed steak (1,785 calories), and I also really wanted a primi dish of pasta with wild boar Bolognese and truffle (1,148 calories). I’m abysmal at mental arithmetic, but by the time it came to asking meekly for “a single scoop of olive oil gelato”, it was game over. Dinner for three, for one.

But gorgeous. I regret nothing. Not even the latte that next morning, with the avocado on toast and sausage on the side that immediately took me smashing through my calorie ceiling for the day. Maybe at some point in the brave new world of the BoTree, they can develop a version of Ozempic to circulate via the air conditioning.

Essentials

Doubles at The BoTree (020 7309 9700; thebotree.com) from £690, including breakfast. There are 21 accessible rooms.