Stay at the Cake Hotel for the Sweetest Dreams

Most hotels leave a chocolate on your pillow. London’s Cake Hotel took that gesture a little further: what if the pillow was dessert too? Back in March 2013, a Soho townhouse became a sugar lover’s daydream, complete with vanilla sponge cushions, fudge windowsills, and a bathtub filled with caramel popcorn. Finally, a hotel where eating the furnishings was part of the plan.

The temporary attraction was Tate & Lyle Sugars’ Tasting House, created to introduce its Taste Experience range of golden and brown cane sugars. It was a promotional event with eight themed tasting rooms, rather than a permanent hotel you can book for your next London holiday. Sorry. Your suitcase full of emergency forks will have to wait.

Room Service You Could Actually Chew

Contemporary reporting described walls decorated with macaroons and a rug assembled from 1,081 meringues. There were edible books, too, which sounds like an excellent excuse for not finishing your holiday reading. The idea was to surround visitors with sweets that normally belong on a plate, then invite them to explore the rooms through their taste buds.

Each room drew on a different part of the world. The Caribbean room offered a treasure chest filled with edible pearls and ginger spiced doubloons. Pirates hunting for gold could apparently settle for something better: snacks. A Mayan themed room featured a fudge temple, while the South Pacific room included a towering Easter Island head made from chocolate mud cake.

Elsewhere, the Mississippi inspired Mardi Gras room brought a rainbow cake to the party. The Mediterranean bedroom supplied the popcorn bath and edible decorations. Imagine choosing a room based on the view, then remembering that the view is also your second dessert. The minibar suddenly seems a bit underambitious.

A Very Temporary Sweet Escape

The scale of the project was substantial. Contemporary accounts put the work at more than 2,000 hours of baking and another 900 hours of decorating, using over 600 kilograms of sugar. That is a serious amount of kitchen time for something visitors were encouraged to nibble. Building a hotel is hard enough without guests eating your progress.

The makers included specialist cake artists. Rosalind Miller Cakes documented its contribution: a bouquet of sugar flowers displayed in an edible vase created by Kate Shirazi of Cakeadoodledo. Even the flowers had a job beyond looking pretty. This was not the place to absentmindedly ask whether the centerpiece came with dinner.

Reports advertised a public opening on March 21, 2013, for one night only. A firsthand account from Great Cake Places also described an overnight competition, so the sleepover angle was more than just a headline. The important part today is the date: this was a short lived event, not an ongoing accommodation offer.

Still, the original fantasy still holds up beautifully. Check in, admire the decor, eat the decor, and wake up wondering whether that midnight snack used to be your cushion. Sweet dreams, indeed. The next morning might have felt suspiciously like November 1. Totally worth it!