Escape to the country just from the city
When it comes to luxury in the city, The Dorchester always delivers, and at Coworth Park, the hotel group’s modern country house hotel in Ascot, we can escape to the country in the same five-star style.
Set amongst 240 acres of countryside (but handily just outside the M25), Coworth Park has country pursuits covered. There’s a polo field and an equestrian centre, so you can explore the meadow, lakes and rest of the ground on horseback. You can walk through the gardens and discover the sculptures by Carol Peace. You can practice your serves and volleys on the tennis court.
We prefer the slower pace of life, so the revamped spa was our first port of call. As well as an expanded gym offering, complete with luxury Technogym gear, the wellness offering now also includes a new poolside thermal experience featuring a Finnish sauna, citrine-lined steam room and snow shower, plus treatments from ishga, Wildsmith, Natura Bissé and Made for Life Organics. We had an ishga wellbeing full body massage, featuring a body oil formulated for Coworth Park by the Scottish brand. The combo of the warming body oil, the heated massage bed, and the soundscape of the sea around the Outer Hebrides was unbelievably relaxing, and any tension we carried in from the city just melted away.
If you don’t manage to visit the spa, you’ll still find some zen in your room. The beds at Coworth Park are outrageously comfortable, like sleeping on a cloud. The rest of our room, an executive suite in the main mansion building (there are also rooms and cottages in the Stables out closer to the polo field), was just as impressive. As well as a flat-screen TV rising out the unit at the foot of the bed, there was also a separate sitting area, a desk, and a standalone bar in the main room. The double-door walk-in wardrobe was merely a waiting room compared to the expansive bathroom, where a freestanding copper tub was flanked by his-and-hers sinks, laden with The Dorchester’s own toiletries.
Even if you weren’t sleeping over, Adam Smith’s Woven restaurant is well worth a visit (it’s very doable as a day trip for lunch given the hotel’s proximity to London) though after an indulgent dinner, we were pleased to only have to travel one floor up to bed. The Michelin-starred restaurant serves a semi-set tasting menu – you choose a starter, main and dessert, which come alongside an epic snack assortment, an exceptional bread basket, which includes a cheese pain suisse and a milk bread tiger roll, and petit fours to finish. Aside from the bread, the highlights for us included the Cornish crab with a Thai green curry foam; the jellied Devon eel, something that’s been on the menu since opening; a fat barbecued scallop with a yuzu beurre blanc and caviar; a buttery piece of wagyu with onion, parsley and mustard; and a vanilla mousse with black truffle ice cream.
Breakfast at Woven is more casual but no less decadent. The pantry area at the restaurant’s entrance, where you see some of the chefs preparing snacks during dinner service, becomes the buffet area, loaded with cereals, granolas, fruits, pastries and yoghurts. There are plenty of cooked options available a la carte too, including a full English that comes with two types of bacon. They’ll even do you a takeaway coffee if you have to dash off after breakfast, not that you’ll really want to leave.
An overnight stay here is definitely a special occasion situation, with the impeccable service, luxurious food, and probably the world’s best beds making it memorable, but a day trip – for the spa or Woven or both – is a more accessible way to experience some of that Coworth Park magic.
Coworth Park, Blacknest Rd, Sunningdale, Ascot SL5 7SE
dorchestercollection.com
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