'My foolproof, five-star half-term staycation plan pleased the entire family'

And so we approach another school holiday with tickets booked somewhere hot and exotic (Cyprus) and a drumbeat of foreboding that we won’t get there. Somewhere along the line, something or someone will stop the fun.

It could be that we don’t get our coronavirus test results back in time. Or maybe Grant Shapps will close the airbridge to the island as we’re boarding the flight. Or Nicosia could decide it doesn’t fancy welcoming plague carriers from the UK…

Whatever happens, we’re looking at a cancellation. What we need instead is a copper-bottomed, guaranteed getaway. And where better to look than on our doorstep? Or, at any rate, a bus ride away in Mayfair.

London’s hotels usually rely on foreign tourists to fill their rooms, so a lot of them have suites going spare at the moment. My family plumped for The Dorchester as the venue for our elevated overnight staycation.

The hotel, which started spinning its revolving doors in 1931, is the grandest of London’s Grande Dame five-star hotels as Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Taylor, Ernest Hemingway and Alfred Hitchcock could attest. When it opened, Sir Malcolm McAlpine, then its owner, called the sturdy building ‘bomb-proof, earthquake-proof and fireproof’. All the Luftwaffe could do to it in the Blitz was to smash a few windows. But is it plague-proof too?

At first sight, little has changed here. Florist Philip Hammond has continued to oversee the gigantic floral displays (palest pink roses and autumnal leaves when we visited) in the entrance. The Promenade’s resident pianist was playing a mix of classics, including ‘Happy Birthday’ and Hitchcock film scores to the groups gathered for celebrations.

This is the place for a champagne tea. Coronation chicken finger sandwiches, Halloween-themed miniature pecan pie and raisin scones with lemon curd slipped down nicely with a glass (well, two actually) of English Rathfinny Estate blanc de noirs.

The staff, though masked, were extremely charming and full of information about the almost infinite choice of tea blends on the menu. They also, very politely, didn’t bat an eyelid when we finished off a second round of sandwiches. After that, it was clearly time for a rest.

There’s absolutely nothing a languid teen loves more than lounging in a nice bedroom. So my daughter, 14, recreated the lazy atmosphere of a summer holiday afternoon and turned her pristine hotel bedroom into a replica of her den at home by emptying all her belongings on the floor and going to ground in amongst them like a hamster in its nest of shredded newspaper.

Then she tuned into her phone and was completely happy. Meanwhile, I decamped to the spa downstairs, where no children are allowed to venture, for my own personal holiday. This consisted of a swishy blowdry at the Carol Joy salon inside the hotel, and then a manicure in palest pink to match the Promenade’s roses.

One pandemic innovation at the hotel is a new outdoor terrace meaning people from more than one household can get together for a cocktail. This has involved the bar biting out a chunk of pavement and Dorchester forecourt, barricading it off from Park Lane with boxes of flowers and greenery and installing some fiercely efficient out-door heaters.

It gives anyone trying the hotel’s new signature Martinez cocktail (which involved months of research by the reigning monarch of mixologists, Giuliano Morandin, recreating a very smooth traditional London Old Tom gin) a very good view of the Rolls Royce Wraiths and Ferrari SF90 Stradales purring up to the front entrance.

It also allowed me to debut my blowdry and try out a highly delicious Dorchester 75th cocktail (like a French 75 but with apple juice instead of lemon juice and therefore a tiny bit less lethal). A party at a nearby table was cracking open a pink Ruinart as we left.

Back up in the room, things had moved on a lot while we were having our cocktails. The sitting room of our suite had been transformed into a Willy Wonka cinema with a candy-floss machine, a huge bucket of popcorn, giant chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream and jelly babies.

Film-themed scatter cushions covered the large sofas and the kids were wrapping themselves around some pepperoni pizzas. We left them in front of Independence Day and raced downstairs for supper in The Grill.

Tom Booton, head chef of The Grill, has created a menu that requires very careful attention and appreciation. Take the chips for which Booton, who is only in his late 20s, is justly famous. They look like any old fat fry, but they’re created from layer upon layer of finely sliced potato all squashed back together again which means that the whole mouthful is crisp and crunchy with no stodgy boring middle. They are pure evil.

The restaurant could be stuffy and formal and the beautiful interior is clearly eye-poppingly expensive but it has managed to stay relaxed, as has the food. And both have a very British slant - even the plates come from Peckham.

The sommelier, Eugenio Egorov, paired our steak tartare, Cornish cod and pigeon with cavolo nero with some wonderfully classy wines by the glass including a Domaine Prieur-Brunet Santenay 1er Cru Maladière and a 2017 Pouilly-Fuissé from Roc des Boutires. Booton’s also done a white Snickers and salted milk ice-cream pudding which was, frankly, outrageous.

The tables around us were all full - one even had a wedding party with a groom and bride complete with veil toasting their future. And the waiting staff did a brilliant job of whisking us through the evening towards curfew at top speed without making us feel rushed.

They, along with everyone else at the hotel, are clearly thrilled to be working again and that lends an air of celebration to every encounter. It’s a shame you can’t linger over your dessert wine, but there are some compensations to being back in the room by 10pm, namely a very long and sound night’s sleep.

I finished this most luxurious (if brief) staycation with an Aromatherapy Associates massage back in the spa the following morning and we wafted off home in a cloud of clary sage and geranium.

The Dorchester’s new ‘Ultimate Staycation’ package includes accommodation, breakfast for two, complimentary early check-in and late check-out, and complimentary car parking and valet service. Every guest receives a ‘Protect Me’ pack including hand sanitiser and sanitation wipes. Superior King Room from £575.  For family offerings, there is the new Family Time package, which includes 50% off a second room for children or a complimentary second room for children when booking a suite; The Dorchester

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