Inner City Peace

Sundays are best spent on yourself. From painting your nails, doing a spot of gardening or reading a book- it’s the one day of the week that you should be able to say ‘sorry- I’m busy doing me that day’ when people pester. After all, the other six days tend to revolve around the needs of others; your boss, your kids, your spouse. Even the dog can dictate your actions on a day to day basis.

The best ways to relax often involve doing very little other than pampering yourself and enjoying good food and drink. The Malmaison knows this, and has cleverly put together a stress busting Sunday schedule for us all to enjoy.

Despite everything I’ve just mentioned, I still find it hard to not get side tracked when at home. Even when I do decide to venture into the kitchen and later run myself a bubble bath, this often results in nearly setting the house on fire and the hot water running out. The Malmaison’s offering means you’re forced to let someone else do the hard work for you. All you need to do is sit back and relax...

My other half and I arrived at Le Petit Spa early afternoon. Given the choice of two treatments, I went for the aromatherapy facial and he chose the aromatherapy fitness massage. What makes Le Petit Spa different to other spas I’ve tried (and I’ve tried a fair few) is the way it’s hidden away in the basement. Even Chris said ‘I never knew this was here’ and that’s what makes it feel like you truly have got away from the hustle and bustle of outside. What’s more, it’s all very tranquil and they’ve made what could have been a dungeon space into a velvety rich underground. You can’t tell if it’s day or night, sun or snow if you’re down there- all you do know is that you feel at peace.

Once robed up, we headed in for our treatments. To our surprise and delight, the two therapists led us into a double treatment room. This means there’s two treatment beds in once large room and you can therefore both have your treatments in the same space at the same time. This was a little strange at first, I must admit. I have a tendency to fall asleep whilst having facials. I’ve even been known to snore- ever so gently of course. That’s bad enough in front of one therapist let alone two and my boyfriend. Luckily though, he was in his own world, or so he told me at the end. I needn’t have worried.

The massage he had was very intense so whilst I was pleasantly marinating in delicious Espa face products, he was having a year’s worth of knots kneaded out of his entire body. Both of us were treated to plenty of aromatherapy oils so not only did we end up with silky smooth skin, our respiratory system also felt aired out and revitalised. And that wasn’t where the winding down ended. Our therapists informed us that we were free to stay in the spa for as long as we wanted. That meant free reign of electric massage chairs, saunarium, gym, free herbal teas and monsoon showers. Heaven. (We did of course skip the gym part. Gyms are banned on Sundays in my book.)

There’s nothing like doing nothing to trigger an appetite. I won’t lie, we’d been thinking about our Sunday roast since we arrived- even throughout the lovely treatments. We were escorted down to the Brasserie where we were passed over to the next member of the Mal team. They really don’t let you lift a finger or spare a thought. The menu is easy too. The choice of soup or tomato mozzarella salad for starter, then roast pork with apple sauce or roast beef and homemade Yorkshire pudding for main. We tried one of each.

The soup and salad starters were just that- a taster to get your stomach ready for what was to come. That’s the beauty of Sunday roasts- you don’t need much else round it. The roasts here were huge and came with a separate dish of carrots and greens plus accompanying jugs of gravy. We both agreed that the pork was incredible and the best dish of all. The apple sauce it came with tasted like real apple pie apples and the rosemary potatoes were to die for- crisp and golden, I could have eaten 20.

The beef is a real mans dish, and I did struggle to eat all the meat but hey, whose complaining. If you don’t need to undo your top button on your jeans then you’ve not had a good Sunday roast- that’s a fact. We finished off our bottle of red wine and subsequently rolled out of the Mal, rolled into a taxi and then rolled onto the couch. Pampered, preened and pigged out, it felt like Christmas day.

If you fancy that Christmas day feeling in the middle of summer, you can try the Malmaison’s Inner City Peace with all the trimmings for just £50 per person. The day includes a spa treatment for her, a spa treatment for him, two course Toast the Roast each and a bottle of wine.