Hilton London Bankside Review

The hotel is located in the Bankside area of London, just a few minutes walk from The Tate Modern and 5 minutes walk from Blackfriars train station.

I'm not an expert on London geography, but as someone visiting for a couple of nights to do the touristy stuff I found it a reasonably good location.

We arrived from Gatwick Airport by train at Blackfriars station. It took only 5 minutes or so to find the hotel. We were catching one of the London Tour buses (as you do as a tourist..!) and managed to pick it up from the other side of the river which was a 20 minute or so walk over Blackfriars Bridge. On our way back we picked up an Uber from around Piccadilly Circus which only took around 15 minutes and cost just over £10.

Our Deluxe room was on the 6th floor, just next to the lifts (but far enough away you could not hear them). The room had two windows which offered nice views towards the Shard and the immediate local area, but not much else.

Waiting for us in the room was a lovely chocolate easter egg filled with a chocolate mousse. What a lovely touch on Easter weekend. Our bags had also been brought up to our room by the concierge.

As you would expect with the hotel being brand new, everything was immaculate and working well.

The room was a good size, with massive king bed as well as a desk and sofa. There were ample plugs around the room, including next to the bed. The room came with the usual amenities including a 42" TV mounted into the wall (which had a new menu system different to the normal Hilton one), air conditioning (which was quite and worked well), tea & coffee making facilities, mini bar, safe and ironing board.

As with the rest of the hotel, the decor was lovely and created a nice relaxing atmosphere.

There was a note included in the room to inform us the contents of the mini bar were included free of charge, which is a nice gesture. There were a few bottles of coke, some fresh orange and nuts/gummy bears to choose from.

A turndown service was also offered with a mat and slippers laid next to the bed for you arriving back at night.

We were offered breakfast in the lounge, as well as the full breakfast in OXBO Bankside restaurant which was located to the right of reception. We choose to eat in the OXBO restaurant and weren't disappointed.

We gave our room number on entering and were taken to a table near the buffet. The buffet area was very open with plenty of space and nicely laid out. The buffet selection was fairly extensive with the usual Hilton Breakfast hot and continental options. All of the food looked lovely and was kept fresh and well stocked by the 4 or 5 strong team behind the kitchen. You are able order fresh American style pancakes, waffles, eggs benedict and eggs from the kitchen, all of which is cooked in front of you by the chefs. I don't recall seeing a menu for any of this stuff, I think you just need to know to order. All of the food was of high quality, it felt better quality than Hilton breakfasts generally are. I had freshly made pancakes, dusted with icing sugar and served with some bacon and scrambled egg - lovely!

The OXBO restaurant decor is again quite interesting and slightly chaotic, with animal heads mounted to the walls. I thought it looked great, but other might not like it as much.

We didn't eat in the hotel on this occasion, outside of breakfast. We did have a night cap on the way back from dinner in The Distillery bar. It very much specialises in gins, but we really fancied a cocktail. We had a look through the menu, which had an odd but wide selection but all we really wanted was a classic margarita. When the waiter came over we asked if they could do a margarita, it wasn't a problem. Our margaritas turned up a few minutes later and were very tasty!

You can view the menus for the hotels restaurant, OXBO Bankside on the hotel's website.

The Hilton London Bankside Executive Lounge is located to the right of reception through a keycard controlled door.

The lounge is open from 6am-10pm each day. The lounge is quite large and feels airy despite having no windows because of the skylight and well done lighting. There was ample comfortable seating and like the rest of the hotel was nicely decorated. Loved the vapor fireplaces! The lounge also has toilets with shower facilities and computer bank with printing for guest use.

We ate breakfast in the restaurant and weren't about for afternoon tea in the lounge, but did make it in latterly for their evening drinks and snacks service.

There was a good selection alcoholic drinks including red & white wine, fizz and a number of spirits including gin, vodka, whisky and one or two other spirits. The wine and some of the spirits on offer were higher quality than the selection served in many Hilton lounges. The wine had with a few choices for the red and white, none of which was the horrid Ayrum stuff they serve in many UK lounges.

The section of food was not bad, but not great either with fish canapes which looked nice (but I'm not a fish lover so never tried them), a cheese board, cold cuts and other small stuff like peanuts. There was also small chicken nugget like things in the hot section which were tasty. It was all nice enough but there wasn't a massive amount of it and it wasn't always kept stocked.

The staff offered table service should you want it and kept our fizz topped up for us. There are a few staff up at the bar area offering to help as well, which felt overbearing at points but was generally appreciated.