The former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square sat closed for the better part of a decade. Now it is a 144-suite hotel, and the concrete diagrid ceiling that once watched over Cold War diplomacy watches over very good coffee and Joseph Dirand's walnut panelling.
Eero Saarinen finished the building in 1960. He was already dying. The embassy, with its gilded aluminium eagle by Theodore Roszak perched on the roofline and its distinctive concrete diagrid facade, became one of the defining modernist structures in London. It was also, for sixty years, one of Mayfair's most inaccessible. When the diplomatic mission moved to Nine Elms in 2018, the square went quiet.
The restoration took years. Sir David Chipperfield oversaw the architecture, peeling back decades of security additions and internal partitions to reveal Saarinen's original volumes. The exposed concrete diagrid ceiling on the ground floor is the first thing you see when you walk in. Chipperfield left it bare. The right call.
The restored lobby, The Chancery Rosewood, Grosvenor Square
The rooms
Joseph Dirand designed the interiors. His signature is warm, assured, full of natural materials deployed with confidence. Walnut wood, honey onyx, pale stone. The 144 suites range from Junior Suites to the named Houses, each titled after an American figure tied to the building's diplomatic past: Saarinen House, John Adams House, Kennedy House, Chancery House. The views over Grosvenor Square are calm in the way only a Mayfair garden square can be calm.
Everything feels considered without feeling curated. Dirand has a way of making luxury spaces feel inhabited rather than arranged. The bathrooms are stone and brass. The wardrobes are deep. The beds face the windows, which is something so many hotels get wrong.
Chipperfield left Saarinen's concrete ceiling bare. The right call. Sixty years of diplomacy and the bones still hold.
Léa FontaineEight places to eat
The dining programme is ambitious. Carbone, the New York Italian-American institution, makes its European debut here. Ken Fulk designed the interiors: red damask walls, ebonised wood, oversized Italian light fixtures shaped like inverted ciambella above chequered floor tiles. The energy is theatrical and deliberate. Chicken parm in Mayfair, served without apology.
Tobi Masa brings chef Masa Takayama to London for the first time. Serra handles the all-day Mediterranean menu with a lighter touch. Jacqueline does afternoon tea and evening cocktails. GSQ faces the square and works for mornings. Eagle Bar sits on the terrace. In total, eight restaurants and bars, which sounds excessive until you consider the building is 130,000 square feet.
The collection
Seven hundred works of art fill the building. An art concierge is on hand for guests who want context, though the collection is arranged well enough that you absorb it without narration. The pieces range from post-war abstraction to contemporary photography. They sit comfortably against Dirand's interiors, which provide enough visual quiet for the art to land.
Below ground, the Asaya spa occupies a subterranean wellness centre with a pool, sauna, and treatment rooms. The pool area catches borrowed light through Chipperfield's carefully placed openings. Even underground, the architecture gives you something to look at.
The verdict
London has had an extraordinary run of hotel openings. The Six Senses in Bayswater, the Waldorf Astoria at Admiralty Arch, the Peninsula in Belgravia. The Chancery Rosewood stands apart because the building itself carries so much weight. Saarinen's facade, Roszak's eagle, the diagrid ceiling. These are things no interior designer can invent. Chipperfield understood that. Dirand furnished around it.
During London Fashion Week, Grosvenor Square is ten minutes from most Mayfair presentations and a short drive from the BFC venues. The hotel functions beautifully as a base. But even without the shows, this is a building worth visiting. Some hotels sell a feeling. This one sells architecture, and it has sixty years of it.
The Splendid Edit reviewed The Chancery Rosewood, London, April 2026. Suites from approximately £1,200 per night. Book through rosewoodhotels.com.
Photography courtesy of Wallpaper* / Future PLC