We first stayed here in 1996, as a prelude to travelling on the Orient Express from Victoria for our silver Wedding. It is ideally placed for Victoria and we were completely charmed by being greeted by name on arrival, by the spacious room and by the wonderfully courteous service. We have stayed here on another 5 occasions since (and used to be on their Christmas Card list). The room has never been as spacious or impressive as visit 1, although the cost remains high, but the charm of the staff is undiminished. We have never dined here but lunch and snacks are expensive. Breakfast (never included when we have stayed) is exemplary but very expensive. If we want to treat ourselves on a visit to London, we think of the Goring first. However, the small rooms we have had on the last couple of visits have dimmed our enthusiasm. I suspect that it is not too difficult to do better if looking for 5* accommodation in London in the 21st Century.

We loved this hotel. We only found friendly and courteous staff from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. No request was to much. We loved the location too. It's close enough to everything, and we found it very quiet. We will definitely be returning on our next trip.

Stayed at the Goring for one night (Wednesday) last week and invited an old "friend" (read into that what you will) for supper. The reception by the staff was about as good as it gets, the service is hard to improve on. Every other customer was smartly dressed - I wasn't. That did not matter. Another review suggests rooms are small - the Goring website gives you the size in square feet of each room (I just called them to confirm this is bedroom only. In my own case bathroom was about 60% more space) so why anyone would be surprised.... The terrace is one of the very few truly civilised places in central London you can sit outside, eat and smoke - hooray! The food was superb (except for slightly odd "pea shoots" in otherwise excellent goats cheese salad). Glazed lobster omelette for ?15 was a conspicuous bargain, Champagne has a tendency to evaporate but this is I suspect not unique to this precise location. And the garden it overlooks is unique (as far as I know) around there, unless you're royal. Wouldn't be very big in Essex though. Depends what you expect. The only reason I can't rate it as excellent is that my old friend gently implied that she'd be happy if I took her again. I guess it could turn out to be more costly that it seemed.

This was our twelve visit, and we just love the hotel. From the welcome on arrival through to our departure the staff are excellent. The bar is wonderful for people watching and when we get the chance and are only in London for the day the terrace makes the perfect spot for meeting friends for a bite of lunch. The Dirty Martini served in the bar before dinner was excellent and started the evening off well. The wine list is reasonable for a London property. Dinner is excellent and the menu choice wonderful, the only negative comment would be a ?20 supplement for smoked salmon as a starter on a menu that is already ?47.50. Breakfast next morning was wonderfully relaxing and provided the right start to the day. Looking forward to the next visit

My husband and I stayed at The Goring to celebrate a family birthday in April; the hotel was recommended by my father who has stayed there in the past. We had high expectations as the hotel had been recommended but were sadly disappointed. The rooms were the biggest disappointment as our room was very small with no view at all. (Having inspected other rooms that were available, as we were inclined to change, we decided to stay put as all the rooms we were shown were all the same size - small!) We also found it very hard to sleep as there was a great deal of noise emanating from above - presumably from the occupants in the room above but there were several loud bumps as if furniture was being moved around and this continued throughout the night. The rooms could also benefit from a refurbishment, although they were clean. The food in the evening however was excellent - despite the fact that one of our meals - we were a party of eight - was served a lot later than the rest - and no compensation was forthcoming for this oversight. I would not expect this slight of service in a hotel of this calibre. The cooked English breakfast, which incidentally was not cheap, was absolutely dreadful - quite possibly the worst breakfast I have ever been served in a hotel and I would not recommend at all. The interior of the hotel - the bar and the gardens - were lovely and the staff very welcoming and pleasant. In summary, the only redeeming feature this hotel offered was the food in the restaurant in the evening. I would not stay here again as the rooms and certainly the breakfast is not worth the money.