It all started with my father’s first long-haul flight. In 1962, he boarded an Air France 707, bound for New York and Mexico City. He donned his finest suit, a testament to the era’s travel etiquette. Sharing the first-class cabin was a fellow passenger who carried three suits, carefully chosen for different occasions, including a black tie for a transatlantic dinner. My father, a bit underdressed in comparison, found himself acutely aware of the sartorial standards of the time.
While today’s travel is more relaxed and less encumbered by luggage, I, like my father and his travel companion, believe looking smart is key. Traveling light and wrinkle-free enhances the experience. Think of it as a healthy mind in a well-pressed outfit.
Hotel laundries are essential for maintaining this sartorial standard. Like a trusty wheelie bag or a travel adapter, a good laundry service can make or break a trip. Just as a hotel restaurant can be either a necessity or a highlight, so too can its laundry.
Laundry Tales: From Disaster to Delight
The world of hotel laundries offers a bewildering array of experiences. Some, like the one I encountered in Maputo, are more akin to a clothing exchange – a desperate situation where I found myself sharing socks and underpants with a colleague. A rather extreme example of office bonding! In the tropics, I’ve seen my carefully tailored collars transformed into something more suited for a beach party than a business meeting.
Other hotel laundries impart a distinct “nose” to one’s clothes. This olfactory assault, undoubtedly due to the proximity of kitchens, is often accompanied by passive smoking. It’s laundry as a health hazard. Then there are the mountains of plastic wrapping that inevitably accompany every laundry order, an ecological disaster.
Laundries That Love Your Clothes
A truly exceptional hotel laundry understands your clothing. It heeds instructions, meticulously adjusting starch levels and ensuring sharp creases. Reliability and punctuality are paramount. Thankfully, most good hotels manage to meet these expectations.
But there are some laundries that go above and beyond, elevating laundry to an art form. These services not only clean your clothes but transform them, leaving you feeling renewed.
The Laundry Service That Feels Like a Spa for Your Clothes
Two hotels stand out in the laundry landscape: The Palace Hotel in Tokyo and Le Bristol in Paris. Both elevate the act of cleaning clothes to a sartorial ablution.
At the Palace Hotel in Tokyo, something magical happens to your shirts. No matter how tired and worn they may be upon arrival, a few hours later they emerge rejuvenated, as if they’d spent a relaxing weekend on Lake Constance. It’s all in the starch, I believe – a generous application of pure corn starch that imparts volume, hold, and smoothness without stiffness. Collars and cuffs are reborn, rekindling the love affair between shirt, tie, and cufflinks.
The laundry is returned wrapped in beautifully folded Japanese paper, secured with a ribbon. This paper is perfect for packing, and I must admit to having saved a Palace-laundered shirt for a special occasion back home.
The meticulousness of the Palace Hotel laundry is quintessentially Japanese. As the hotel explained, “To have a laundry request means we are trusted to enter a very personal and private space. Some Japanese guests hesitate to use the service, so we take great care to respond to the trust given to us.”
Parisian Precision: Le Bristol’s Laundry
In Europe, Le Bristol in Paris takes the crown for laundry excellence. Every garment is immaculate, buttons are replaced, repairs are expertly made, and a sense of personal attention pervades the experience. Entrusting your clothes to Le Bristol’s impeccable housekeeping staff is a reassuring experience. You know your beloved garments will be treated as if they were their own.
Le Bristol achieves this level of service with its in-house laundry, located beneath the hotel, run with the precision of a grand kitchen. Nine people are dedicated to laundry, including six expert cleaners and three delivery runners. Beautifully finished garments are wrapped not in plastic but in tissue paper.
Local Charm and the Joy of a Well-Pressed Shirt
New York hotel laundry, in my experience, is unremarkable. This is likely due to the plethora of independent laundries in the Upper East Side, where I often choose to stay. These local laundries offer a charming alternative. It’s almost like being a local when I settle into the twilight luxury of Bemelmans Bar wearing a shirt fresh from a nearby family laundry.
The pleasure of hotel laundry doesn’t have to be reserved for travel, however. My local dry cleaners, Mayfair Cobblers and Laundry Service in London, offer a similar sense of delight. I was recently thrilled to see gold-braided uniforms, striped trousers, shirts, and dresses from local clubs and hotels hanging neatly, awaiting collection. For a moment, I was transported back to the road, dreaming of future adventures.
Have we left anywhere out? Let us know your favorite hotel laundry service in the comments below.
For more stories like this, visit ft.com/globetrotter, or read our city guide London with the FT.
