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Tuesday 27 October 2026

Earlier this month, Venue Search London welcomed clients to a VIP breakfast at the Hotel Café Royal. Guests gathered in the beautiful Domino Room at the iconic West End hotel, renowned for its gorgeous interiors and impeccable five-star service, the kind of place that elevates any event.

The Domino Room, where the breakfast was held, is a historic private dining and event space that suits corporate occasions beautifully. It was a pleasure to catch up with clients before they headed off into their busy days.

The room holds reception drinks for 90 guests, banqueting for 60 or boardroom for 30. The Domino Room features a restored historic interior with creamy tones and gilded accents inspired by Napoleonic-era Paris. Ornate ceilings, gilded mirrors and classical furnishings create a lavish yet intimate atmosphere for formal, fine-dining character. In practice, this makes it a flexible choice for a VIP breakfast, a senior leadership lunch or an intimate client dinner where the focus is on conversation rather than scale.

Beyond the Domino Room, Hotel Café Royal offers a broader range of spaces to suit different event briefs. The Pompadour Ballroom is the largest, a Grade II listed room with beautiful detailing and capacity for 250 standing parties, 110 banqueting, 158 theatre-style and 80 for dinner and dance. It suits gala dinners, awards ceremonies, large receptions and brand launches. The Ballroom recently hosted a 172nd birthday for Oscar Wilde, demonstrating its appeal for milestone celebrations as well as corporate occasions.

For mid-sized events, the Queensberry room takes 150 for receptions, 200 theatre-style and 100 for banqueting, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Piccadilly Circus. The Mayfair and Soho rooms offer smaller, versatile options at around 40 guests reception-style, while Nicols and Nash rooms provide more intimate boardroom settings for 12 and 10 respectively. For daytime conferences or presentations, the theatre-style capacities in the larger rooms make Hotel Café Royal a credible option for product showcases, AGMs or speaker-led sessions. Thee spaces are more stripped back in décor, aiming for a class, dark woods and elegant lighting. They are better suited for meetings and conferences, tucked away in their own space within the hotel.

The Café Royal first opened its doors in 1865 as a restaurant, founded by French wine merchant Daniel Nicholas Thévenon (who later changed his name to Daniel Nicols) after he fled bankruptcy in Paris. The hotel itself opened much later, in 2012, following a conversion of the historic building by architect David Chipperfield.

What the morning demonstrated is that a venue like Hotel Café Royal can serve several corporate purposes within one building: a breakfast in the Domino Room, a conference in the Queensberry, a gala in the Pompadour. As venue finders, a morning like this fills us with excitement. Getting to revisit such an iconic venue in the heart of London, learn more of its history and be a small part of its day to day is a genuine privilege.

Please do get in touch today if you wish to host your next corporate event at Hotel Café Royal, we’d be delighted to assist.