Why I don't ever want to give my phone number to a hotel
Let joy be unconfined! Last weekend was the first time in nearly two years that I’ve been able to help myself to as many bangers from the breakfast buffet as I wanted. I still had to reserve a table at the Fellows House in Cambridge, a protocol unheard of in Before Times, but once there I could roam the buffet freely, without feeling embarrassed at ordering yet another plasticky (but deliciously so) Cumberland sausage via the permitted table service.
To make the reservation, though, I received a text message on my phone asking me what time I wanted to eat. Having someone I don’t know personally use my mobile number is as welcome as seeing them climb through my bedroom window at night. I give it out at hotels solely in case of lost property.
The Fellows House isn’t in the loveliest part of lovely Cambridge, but it is still just a 15-minute walk from all the cobbles, quads and punts you are here for. Building an unremarkable but pristine modern hotel won’t bring on architectural Stendhal syndrome but, once inside, the space is impressive and shiny; open plan with long stretches of graphic black and white marble, panels of patinated mirroring and a reception desk backed by a giant wall of antique wooden library-card drawers.
There’s a bar with a snooker table, and the noise of the balls slamming against the baize echoes pleasingly through to the Folio restaurant. Throughout, there are literary/academia motifs, done with a light touch.
The Folio has leather upholstered booths and a striking graphic monochrome tiled floor, but when I visited for dinner it was borderline freezing. Booze had to be ordered, instantly. The lightness of theming gets a little heavier on the cocktail menu, where most of the concoctions are named after scholars’ best-known books. I went visual – a Quentin Blake-inspired mix of gin, chamomile syrup, blackcurrant liqueur and plum bitters. I was looking forward to the “glass teacup” it was to be served in, imagining something antique and hand-blown from Italy, but instead it was a prosaic bulbous bit of Bodum.
Dinner itself had plenty of high points, though. The chef is doing something clever with tempura tofu and tartare sauce to create convincing vegan fish and chips, and at the other end of the spectrum I had a medium-rare beef fillet that was flawless.
Fellows House is part of the Curio Collection, the brand-within-a-brand from Hilton, effectively a collection of hotels that are independent, but not really. Remember when Tesco launched its own in-store café, Harris + Hoole, which was basically Costa in artisan drag? Imagine the marketing deliberation: “Ampersand or plus sign?” No one was fooled by the fiction that a couple of Hackney hipsters may have opened a café next to the Krispy Kreme donuts at a supermarket check-out. Caffé Nero bought the remnants, closed outlets, and rebranded the remaining baristas as “hooligans”. Edgy or what?
Fellows House is more successful, with elegant design touches. When the lift doors open, floor numbers are indicated by a numeral hand-painted across the pages of an open book, and the hotel’s artwork has been curated (a rare appropriate use of the word!) to channel Cambridge luminaries of the past, including Alan Turing, Charles Darwin and Siegfried Sassoon.
For all the detail and polish, there is still an inescapable whiff of corporate spritz. The LED screens outside the building, in the hallway and both outside and inside the lifts, are naff. Fellows House is more about function than quirk. The place is largely an aparthotel, with kitchenettes in each of the stark but chic studios and suites, and a decent-sized pool and gym on site. Rooms have giant TV screens, and mercifully simple Bluetooth streaming. A minus: the pointless, ugly stickers with QR codes on bedside mirrors to tell you “your room has been cleaned and disinfected for your comfort”.
I would happily stay at the Fellows House for as long as I needed to be in Cambridge. It’s a well-oiled and very comfortable (and regularly disinfected, I hear) hospitality machine. I couldn’t fault the service over the weekend I was in residence – apart from those texts. Sending me an SMS after I’ve checked out of your hotel, asking me to rate my stay from one to 10, will get you ghosted and blocked faster than a suspected Tinder serial killer.
Double rooms from £170 per night including breakfast. There are seven accessible rooms (thefellowshouse.com)
