Travel: 24-Hour Room Service Myhotel

MYHOTEL IS the very latest addition to the new genre known as the design hotel. Clearly aimed at the younger, style-conscious generation who have chucked out their chintz and need a home away from their newly renovated loft apartments and Dualit toasters.

A townhouse just off London's bustling Tottenham Court Road has undergone a pounds 10m renovation and has been transformed with the aid of Terence Conran Design and the Architectural Consultancy into a stylish paean of East- meets-West chic and understated elegance.

Thankfully, the building comes complete with triple glazing, so the noise of the traffic outside is obliterated. The hotel has also drafted in the expertise of William Spear, feng shui man to the stars, to ensure that the chi energy is flowing in the right direction. A calm air of serenity pervades. On arrival you are assigned your own personal assistant who arranges anything you may require during your stay (presumably within legal confines). Communal areas include mybar, mychi restaurant, the tranquillity library, complete with CD collection, books from the nearby branch of Books Etc and a juice bar.

If the mood takes you, there are also desks where you can plug in your lap-top and put the final touches to that media pitch. There are also two private dining rooms, a boardroom with capacity for 30-50 people and a fitness room which is still under construction.

LOCATION LOCATION, LOCATION

myhotel is at 11-13 Bayley Street, Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HD (0171- 580 7766, fax 0171-580 0588

Local Transport: myhotel is situated just five minutes from Oxford Street, so getting around is not difficult. Soho and Covent Garden and the British Museum are all a walk away, while everything else is a short ride in a London cab.

ARE YOU LYING COMFORTABLY?

There are 76 bedrooms, eight of which are suites, all in muted colours and with clean Conran-designed beech furniture. Suites and Executive twins are decorated with oriental antiques.

No more furious rifling through the hotel services book at 2am looking for the number of room service; all hotel services are a simple 1-2-3 away. Choose from a selection of mychi sushi, oriental duck wrap, or the mychi selection of mezze. Beds are in chic, simple colour schemes, incorporating a dash of orange which, according to feng shui principles, balances you chi energy.

Mirrors are carefully positioned, on the back of the door, as you should never sleep in front of your reflection. In the twin and double rooms the mirrors are circular to emphasise unity.

Freebies: On arrival in your room you are greeted with the myhotel London survival kit containing a bottle of still water, a map of London and a fortune cookie. Sadly, a pounds 200 Harvey Nichols voucher was missing from my kit.

Bathroom: Blue mosaic tiles, Aveda bathing products, a power shower to wash away the London grime and smart white waffle bath robes which will no doubt find themselves accidentally packed on departure.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

TV: There are all the usual channels you would expect, MTV, CNN etc, plus some pay-to-view channels.

Radio: Each room is equipped with a dinky micro system, and the hotel has a library of suitably hip CDs to choose from.

Phone/fax/internet: Direct dialling telephones. Local calls cost 40p a minute. Fax machines are available in rooms by request - which probably breaks every rule in the feng shui book.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A standard room is from pounds 155-pounds 175 per night; a standard Double/ Twin pounds 195-pounds 225; Superior double twin pounds 225-pounds 255; Executive king/twin pounds 295-pounds 325 (which is preferable to a suite as there is just one large room as opposed to two smaller ones) and suites pounds 395-pounds 445.

English breakfast is an additional pounds 15. Dinner for two at mychi comes to around pounds 45 (excluding wine)