Stoke Park, Berkshire – Review

There`s every chance you may recognise the luxury Stoke Park in Berkshire, its history pans almost 100 years and it has been immortalised thanks to Hollywood blockbusters like Layer Cake, Notting Hill and some rather good Bond films.

Stoke Park is situated approximately 20 minutes from the M25 and just outside the city of Slough. Its imposing, mile long rolling drive (with historic golf course on either side) is just a taster of the elegance you can expect with this historically important and visually appealing luxury hotel. We were recently lucky enough to review Stoke Park and found it hard not to be impressed from the moment we arrived to the moment we left.

There are in fact two separate buildings that make up Stoke Park, one being the original mansion and the second being The Pavilion, a more contemporary offering but with just as much charm, class and charisma as the original, more classic Mansion building.

Stoke Park is possibly best known for its 27 hole golf course, which holds historical importance to the local golfing community and is still an incredibly prestigious course to belong to, which is clear from all the Astons, Ferraris and Porsches in the car park. We were staying in The Pavilion part of the hotel, which contains the Spa, pool, racket sports facilities and contemporary Italian restaurant. We were shown our room, a junior suite at £395 / night, which contained a 40 inch Plasma and all the bells and whistles that you could ever need or want in a hotel room. We were even left a bottle of Champagne – a fantastic welcome to a very memorable review.

Chantelle, now 5 months pregnant disappeared for her 90 minute `Mum to be` massage at the spa downstairs, which by all accounts was incredible. This left me time to make a start on the Champagne and generally kick back and enjoy the high level of comfort that our room had to offer.

Two very chilled out guests (us) headed off to the Fine Dining restaurant at the Mansion where we found a very different level of luxury… a more classical edge as you`d imagine. This was the building made famous by Hollywood and I have to say that it was every bit impressive.

The menu was hugely impressive and the level of service even more so. It`s an absolute pleasure watching restaurant staff when they are so passionate about the high levels of service they consistently deliver. They were knowledgeable, friendly and incredibly professional in how they went about their work – something that added the cherry on the top of our evening.

The food was absolutely faultless. Starting with the Duck with pan fried foie gras and leading onto the Venison – we were delighted with our choices. Presentation was fantastic as were the portion sizes – a more than adequate serving. Overall we would say that the fine dining experience was certainly in our top 5 to date.

So, to sum up… Stoke Park is perhaps not a cheap weekend, but why should it be, luxury lies at every level, this place is truly impressive.