Sweet dreams are made at The Savoy, and its latest bed will give you the kind of sleep you’ve been dreaming about
The quest for good sleep began when Richard D’Oyly Carte opened The Savoy in 1889, setting a new standard for luxury hotels in London at the time. Unfortunately, he struggled to find a bedmaker that met his strict criteria, and this eventually led to the formation of Savoir, a bedmaking company that’s been creating beds for The Savoy over the last century.
When it comes to sleeping, I’m definitely in the Princess and the Pea camp, I tend to toss and turn throughout the night, rarely getting a restful eight hours. So you can imagine my excitement when I got the chance to check into The Savoy’s Royal Suite and try Savoir’s latest exclusive, handcrafted bed for myself, which promises superlative sleep.
Befitting the vast, elegant Edwardian style suite – it takes up the entire river side of the fifth floor – the ornate, four-poster king bed looks like it came straight out of a fairytale, complete with added advantages like a handmade box spring base, mattress and topper – all valued at around S$150,000.
As with all the best mattresses, the ones at The Savoy are made with horse tail set in between the pocket springs. The mattress in the Royal Suite also features a hand-tufted topper made from rare fur by yarn specialist Tengri – hand combed once a year from yaks roaming the Khangai mountains of Mongolia. Their hair is softer than cashmere with exceptional temperature regulating properties, which is perfect for aiding sleep.
My first impression is that the mattress is surprisingly firm, but also has just enough flexibility and I don’t feel any points of undue pressure – it’s just right, as Goldilocks would say. I close my eyes with the intention of a 20-minute afternoon nap and I wake up over an hour later.
The true test though, comes after supper in the suite’s dining room that overlooks the Thames (the view that Claude Monet painted), impeccably served by morning-coated butlers. While I still wake up several times in the night as is my wont, I immediately fall back to sleep each time. What’s even more remarkable is that the back pain I’d been feeling the day before has now disappeared.
Additionally (and frustratingly), I’m not the kind who can lie in, and I’m usually restless to get up by 7am, but here I found it to be quite the opposite. The only thing that could drag me out of that bed that morning was the thought of an Omelette Arnold Bennett for breakfast, made with smoked haddock, hollandaise sauce and cheese, and eponymously named after the celebrated writer when he stayed at The Savoy in the 1920s.
So, did I feel I’d slept in a bed fit for a king or queen? The answer is a resounding yes.
