Review: Club Lounge At InterContinental London Park Lane

Published Apr 20 2025, 8:08 AM, Updated Apr 20 2025, 9:44 AMThe Club InterContinental lounge at the InterContinental Park Lane in London has the best views of any club or executive lounge in London. It also has a great breakfast with a buffet and an à la carte egg menu, a delicious afternoon tea served in three courses on three tiers of plates, and a decent evening spread with two hot dishes and plenty of canapés.

The InterContinental Park Lane partners with our luxury travel concierge. If you book via our agents, we can secure you a guaranteed room upgrade, and a second double room upgrade (the latter upgrade is subject to availability on checkin), and Club Lounge access for free.

This has to be one of the best hotel deals in London. Depending on the day and the season, rates at this InterContinental range from £400 GBP to £700 GBP.

There are other great executive club lounges in London, which we have outlined in our best executive or club lounges in London. The executive lounge at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House has a great ambiance and food, but lacks natural light. The club lounge at the Langham London is also a great lounge with amazing food and Mary Poppins rooftop views. But in our humble opinion, the Club InterContinental at the InterContinental Park Lane in London is the best executive club lounge in London.

The View

The view from this lounge is phenomenal. It is located on the 7th floor of the InterContinental, with expansive windows that must be two storeys high. These windows look down upon the busy roundabout at Hyde Park Corner, a key artery to London’s road network. The roundabout leads off the famous Park Lane, which has arms leading to Knightsbridge, Buckingham Palace, and Piccadilly Circus.

As such, spending time on one of the comfy sofas in the lounge and watching the activity below is always exciting. The double-decker buses look like dinky toys from the 7th floor. You feel like you could pick them up in your hand and drive them about. There are supercars, ambulances, police cars, taxis, and kamikaze cyclists weaving their way around this crazy road network. At night, you feel like you are watching a neon car ballet!

Beyond the roundabout, views extend over the Bomber Command Memorial and across Green Park. This pretty park, which surrounds Buckingham Palace, has an interesting history. King Charles II used to pick flowers in the park. Rather than giving them to his wife, he gave them to another woman. In revenge, the Queen ordered that every single flower in the park be pulled up and no more planted. True or not, no formal flowerbeds exist in the leafy Green Park.

Beyond Green Park, the London skyline extends into the distance. To your left, you can see the London Eye and Big Ben. To your right, the chimneys of Battersea Power Station. Between these are the distant towers and skyscrapers that sit on the banks of the River Thames.

Look up, and you can see the flight path and holding pattern for planes coming and going from Heathrow. Spot A380s and Boeing 787s as they lower into their landing pattern. Yes, this is a great view and is a reason to book into this lounge.

Ambiance

This lounge is big, extending almost the length of this large building. It has been designed in a split-level layout, with a variety of sitting and dining spaces and a large central food and beverage area where breakfast, afternoon tea, and evening canapés and drinks are served.

To one side is the concierge desk, where you can check out and order business services. To the left and right are further sitting areas and a huge array of papers and magazines. The lounge rarely feels busy, and during work hours on weekdays, it can be very peaceful.

You can sometimes find yourself alone with only the concierge and staff for company. Somehow, however full or empty, the design, ambient music, and the hum from the two widescreen TVs mean that this lounge rarely feels too busy or too empty.

As mentioned above, the lounge is split-level and is separated into various areas with mid-height dividers. You have a relaxing lounge area at either end with sofa seats by the windows, and also set further back in the lounge by the TVs.

Then along the center part of the lounge, there are duos of restaurant seats which sit you up higher and provide a great view out of the vast windows.

Behind this restaurant seating area is the large buffet area which sits up a few sets and hosts numerous fridges, all the buffet food and also some high bar stools and a high table with charging ports where you can sit, with easy access to the buffet looking right over the top of the restaurant seating area and across the whole of London out of the windows that line the lounge.

Staff

Another thing I particularly like about this lounge is the staff. They have consistently been exceptional over the many years we’ve been frequenting this lounge. Friendly, professional, and, unlike many other club lounges, they offer to bring you food and drinks from the moment you arrive.

This table service enhances the whole lounge experience. They also make excellent tea from fresh tea leaves, so you can happily spend all day working without leaving your seat.

Food

This lounge has excellent breakfast, afternoon tea, evening dishes, and canapes. Between mealtimes, there are smoked almonds, unlimited kettle chips, coated peanuts, homemade cookies, and any drink you could wish for. There’s also always a full bowl of fruit to pick at.

Every cold beverage you could wish for is available in the numerous fridge cabinets in the buffet area, including sparkling and still waters, cokes, juices, and even Innocent smoothies. The hot drinks are made to order and are brought to your table by the lounge staff.

The breakfast is a large buffet with high-quality produce, including smoked salmon, turkey ham, ordinary ham, feta, Cheddar, Red Leicester, cottage cheeses, cereals, and hummus options.

Plus, there are all sorts of dips, including chopped red onions, lemon, capers, cream cheese, and mini gherkins. Three juices are provided in jugs with taps, and there are generous bowls of cut fruit, including diced watermelon, fruit salad, and diced pineapple.

There is fresh bread, crusty rolls, and the fresh pastries are noteworthy in their sheer indulgence. You can choose from oversized croissants, pastry pockets packed with blueberries, swirly chocolate pastries with chocolate cream and raspberries on top, and square pastries filled with strawberries and cream.

There is also a full à la carte breakfast menu, which you can order from and is brought to your table. Hot egg options include a Full English breakfast, eggs Florentine, and eggs Benedict.

You can see our picks in the photos above and below. Each dish comes perfectly cooked, with the yolk dribbling out of the poached egg while the white is fully cooked, so the breakfast chef here is very good.

Afternoon tea is also excellent with an array of tasty sandwiches (egg, chicken tikka, ham), cakes, scones, and cream, as well as a really outstanding selection of teas and excellent coffee options.

The staff will deliver the full selection of afternoon tea on tiered plates, which is a wonderful experience and includes delicious creamy pink cakes. You can also pick and choose sandwiches and other goodies from the buffet area, including little rolls on mini plates containing poached lobster, crayfish, saffron cream cheese, mango pearls, and baby cucumber.

The food in the evening is also great, including a nice selection of canapés and two hot dishes on heated plates.

The canapé type pickings include smoked salmon, parma ham, and slow-cooked turkey, accompanied by cream cheese, English mustard, capers, piccalilli, and cornichon gherkins.

There are canapé trays with biscuits balanced with beetroot, winter truffle goats cheese and herbs, as well as little bowls of tahini hummus and guacamole next to freshly sliced bread.

There are also often beef and vegetarian canapes stuffed with smoked aubergine pate. The classic smoked salmon canape stuffed with organic cucumber and cream cheese is another very good moorish option.

If you want to go for the healthy option, there are salad items including tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, and carrots, accompanied by nuts, seeds, and dips.

When we last stayed, the hot dishes on Smeg heated plates were hot mushroom arancini truffle aioli, a tasty mushroom-garlic pasta suitable for vegetarians, and chicken shish tawouk with garlic aioli. Both dishes were hot, filling, and delicious. I imagine these rotate and are not the same every night.

For dessert, there were watermelon slices. One night, there were delicious, creamy chocolate tiramisu cake squares, and another night, there were lemon creamy cake slices.

If you prefer a savoury dessert, a plate of cheeses, including the usuals—red Leicester, brie, and mouldy cheese—with berries and cakes, that comes with four bowls of chutneys, is available every night.

Alcoholic drinks are also available in the early evening. It’s worth noting that the staff in the lounge are incredibly generous with topping up and supplying drinks. Champagne, cocktails, beers, and wines are available, and expect to be pestered into “just another one” before the bar closes. Staff have often suggested lining up 2 or 3 beers or glasses of wine during happy hour to keep us topped up through the evening and after happy hour closes.

If you want to indulge further, Theo Randall’s restaurant downstairs is excellent. You are missing out if you don’t try his pasta, but there is undoubtedly enough evening food and drink in the lounge that you don’t need to eat out.

Conclusion

Is this the lounge to end all lounges and the best hotel club lounge in London? Yes, we think so, but be prepared for the hefty price tag. Intercontinental Ambassador loyalty members are currently charged around £100 GBP per room per night on top of the room rate for up to 2 people. For non-Ambassador members, the rate is even higher. If you book via our concierge, we can get you this Club Lounge free as well as guarantee you a room upgrade.

We will be back for the kind staff, the table service, the daytime food offering, and the bird’s eye view of London with my dinky cars weaving around the roundabout. I have seen Tony Blair in this lounge, and Condoleezza Rice is also said to like it. If it’s good enough for them, it’s certainly good enough for us!

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