It's usually the dining table: why executives skip the hotel suite

Ask a chief executive why they took an apartment in London instead of a hotel suite and, surprisingly often, the answer is the dining table, which seats eight with nobody at the next table listening. The kitchen, the extra bedrooms and the calmer lobby all follow from wanting one place that works as office, meeting room and home in the same week.

Meetings, calls and dinner at home

A hotel gives you a meeting room by the hour, a bill for the coffee and a lobby everyone walks through. An apartment gives you a living room where a board member can come for breakfast without being seen arriving, and in the last week of a deal that sort of discretion is worth a lot. Check the layout before you count on it by asking for a floor plan or room sizes and whether the dining table seats more than four. Some buildings also have a meeting room guests can book, so find out whether it's included or charged by the hour.

A 6am call with Singapore and an 11pm one with San Francisco are much easier with a bedroom and a separate sitting room, because you aren't perched on the end of the bed and a travelling partner can sleep through them. Get the Wi-Fi speed in writing, and if calls are the job, ask whether there's a wired connection or a backup line.

By Wednesday of a heavy week most people want to eat at home in whatever they wore on the plane, and a kitchen makes that possible even if all it ever produces is toast and a takeaway on proper plates. For hosting, bringing in a private chef for the evening is a well-worn route; ask the residence whether it works with one, whether the kitchen can handle dinner for eight and whether the building has rules about guests after a certain hour. For a bigger occasion, book out. Park Lane is a short taxi from most of Mayfair and Marylebone, and Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester has three Michelin stars.

Family, dogs and a familiar front door

Longer trips more and more often include a partner and children, and hotels are bad at this, since a suite with one bedroom and a sofa bed doesn't work for a fortnight. Apartments do: about half the residences we list have three-bedroom apartments, and a fair few go bigger. Kensington and Marylebone suit families best, with Kensington Gardens and Regent's Park close by, the Natural History Museum's free galleries nearby and streets that are calmer at night than anywhere around Soho or Covent Garden. Bringing the dog shortens the list without emptying it, because some residences do take pets.

Serviced apartment buildings have fewer guests, rarely a public restaurant and often no bar, so during a conference week the lobby isn't a meeting point for half the industry. Ask what happens when a stranger turns up asking for your guest by name; a good front desk will phone up first, and in a building without one there's nobody to ask.

Chief executives who come to London every quarter tend to settle on one building and stop looking, because the staff know them, the key works first time and the running route from the front door is already worked out. An enquiry through London Residency goes straight to the residence, so the reservations team sees the history and can often hold the same apartment for the next visit. Ask for it by flat number, and ask whether a repeat or long-stay rate applies.

The trade-offs

Apartments aren't hotels, and for some executives the gaps matter. There's usually no 24-hour room service, only around half of residences have a reception and roughly a quarter have a gym, so a CEO who trains every morning may need a club nearby with a day pass. Daily housekeeping, standard in a hotel, isn't a given either. If any of that is a dealbreaker, filter for reception and gym first and accept that the shortlist will be much shorter.