Located in a residential Knightsbridge street, about a 10min walk from a couple of tube stations, and near to many of the museum and shopping areas, the Egerton House Hotel is well placed a base to operate from if you’re visiting London.

Reception area is quite small and can get very congested during check in/out times and there seems to be scant space for left luggage. Oddly, if you book via their website you're asked to supply the time you expect to arrive/depart yet this doesn't seem to be taken into account when you arrive at the hotel. So we turned up at 1pm as indicated when booking only to be told the room was still being prepared. Not a great issue, as we were going to dump the bags and head out to get a bite to eat, but why ask if you're not going to make use if the info? They also offered a complimentary drink in the drawing room, and the opportunity to relax and take the weight of our feet, sip champagne, and then head off for food was nice way to begin a relaxing few days.

The queen room we had overlooked the private garden for the surrounding residential properties and there was next to no noise to be heard from the surrounding streets - in fact, the creaky stairs up to the first floor were probably the loudest thing we could hear. There was a slight draft through the sash windows, but the heavy drapes dealt with it effectively. The room was well decorated, but if truth be told, there was probably a couple of pieces of furniture too much for the size of the room - manoeuvring around the bed was a little difficult until we moved a small table to a corner of the room and blocked the minibar (not a great issue). The bed was comfortable, the small sofa in the bad window good to sit on, and there was plenty of storage space. The bathroom was well appointment with a good selection of complimentary toiletries although the blue night light was a little intense (hope it’s not fitted for the same reason they are in night clubs!).

Breakfast takes place in the basement, and as soon as you walk in the room you're welcomed personally - maybe the creaky steps down to the basement are cunningly used to alert staff to your arrival! There is a small continental spread on offer in the room along with an a la carte menu for cooked breakfast. If you opt for the room rate that includes breakfast then you can have either the continental or cooked breakfast unlike other hotels where only the continental is covered. At £30 for a full english, if there are more than 2 of you staying in the room then the B&B rate probably makes sense. The full english is good, as were the eggs benedict, all served with a smile and some good light-hearted conversation. There room holds about 10 tables, so if everyone arrived en masse, then it could get very cosy, however, in the time we were there were never more than four tables occupied at a time.

The bar area is something the hotel makes a great deal of and in the evening Antonio presides over this domain with great charm, never short of humorous conversation, and dispensing Martini with great dexterity - have more than a couple of them and your legs might not obey the commands your head is sending them!

We were staying here for our anniversary, and the evening turndown was accompanies with rose petals, chocolate-dipped strawberries & champagne. A genuinely nice gesture and one that would have come as a complete surprise if we hadn't read about it in previous TA reviews. In many ways it's a shame the gestures this hotel makes for wedding/birthday/anniversaries have been so well documented on TA - maybe the Egerton House Hotel can rise to the challenge of coming up with some new undocumented gestures...

The hotel offers free Wi-Fi access, but you'll need to get an access code from reception. During the connection process this code is tied to the MAC address of the device you're using so if you're traveling with multiple iLapdroidkindleberry devices will have to request a code for each device. Once connected it was stable enough to be usable. If you don't have one and need access to a computer then there is one available on the 4th floor landing. There's no privacy if you're using it, and it's not exactly a business center, but it works perfectly well.

As many other have commented, what sets this hotel apart is how accommodating and friendly the staff are, and nothing seems too much trouble for them. Having stayed at a handful of other, larger, 5* hotels in London the Egerton House Hotel would be our preferred choice in future. If your after a never ending list of hotel spa, bar and restaurants then the larger hotels may be better, but if you want a quiet, relaxing hotel with a good atmosphere and plenty of spa, bar and restaurants within walking distance then this boutique hotel could be difficult to beat - let’s face it, if creaky stairs are the biggest fault you can come up with, there isn't really anything wrong with it!