Painting for London's Hospitality Sector: Hotels, Restaurants and Bars

The hospitality brief is different

When a London restaurant closes for a two-week refurbishment in January, the decorator has a fixed, non-negotiable deadline. The menu launch is booked, the reservations are open, the PR is timed to the reopening. An overrun is not an inconvenience — it is a commercial crisis.

This is the defining reality of painting for the hospitality sector in London. The timelines are compressed, the quality standard is high (hospitality interiors are scrutinised by paying guests and reviewed on social media), and the durability requirements are severe. A surface that would last seven years in a domestic setting may be wiped out by cleaning chemicals and constant contact within eighteen months in a restaurant environment.

Getting this right requires a different approach from residential or general commercial work.

Durability vs luxury: finding the specification that does both

The central tension in hospitality decorating is between finishes that look luxurious — deep, flat, chalky tones; silk wallpapers; polished plaster — and finishes that survive commercial use. Both are achievable, but they require the right product choices and the right substrate preparation.

Restaurant walls take considerable abuse: steam and cooking vapour near the kitchen pass, wine and food contact, the daily wipe-down with commercial cleaning products. A standard flat emulsion will not survive this. The correct specification is a washable eggshell or semi-gloss in areas of direct contact — Tikkurila Helmi 10 (an almost-flat eggshell with good cleanability) works well where the client wants a low-sheen look; Dulux Trade Diamond Eggshell is more affordable and significantly more durable than standard vinyl emulsion.

For walls that receive a richer, deeper colour — and many London restaurants specify dark saturated tones, from deep greens to near-black — Little Greene Intelligent Eggshell and Farrow & Ball Estate Eggshell both give the depth of pigment that premium brands achieve, with adequate washability for restaurant use. A clear protective top coat (Polyvine Decorators Varnish in Dead Flat, applied carefully over the dried emulsion) adds a sacrificial layer that can be stripped and recoated without repainting the full wall.

Bar areas require the most durable specification of all. The bar counter front, back-bar joinery, and bar-facing wall surfaces are in direct contact with liquids, glasses, and repeated cleaning every service. Woodwork in these areas should be finished in a hard-curing enamel — Tikkurila Helmi 100 (a full-gloss water-based enamel that cures harder than most alkyd systems) or an industrial two-part polyurethane where the budget allows. These products are significantly harder and more chemically resistant than domestic satinwood or eggshell.

Hotel bedrooms have different demands: the finish must feel premium, must hold up to the daily clean-round and occasional deep clean, and must be patchable during the annual maintenance programme without obvious joins. Dulux Trade Diamond Matt is the hospitality standard for good reason — it patches reliably, washes down well, and is available in virtually any colour.

Hotel corridors are the highest-wear surface in any hotel. Luggage trolleys, room service trolleys, housekeeping carts, and thousands of bag contacts per year destroy a standard finish within months. Specify Tikkurila Luja 20 or Dulux Trade Diamond Matt at no less than the correct spread rate; accept that corridors will need a maintenance repaint every two to three years regardless of specification, and plan for it.

Working to hospitality timelines

The typical London restaurant refurbishment window is ten to fourteen days over January or August. A hotel bedroom block may be available for redecoration over three to four weeks while the rooms are taken out of service.

Working to these timelines requires:

• Fast-drying product selection throughout. Water-based systems are mandatory. Two-to-four-hour recoat times allow two topcoats in a day if the schedule demands it. Oil-based products that require overnight drying are not compatible with hospitality refurbishment timelines.
• Pre-agreed phasing. For hotels, this means room-by-room programming, with completed rooms signed off and released back to housekeeping before the next block begins. For restaurants, it means a clear room-by-room or zone-by-zone sequence that works alongside the flooring, joinery, and lighting contractors.
• Adequate crew size. The timeline mathematics are simple: if ten restaurant dining room walls need two coats of preparation and two coats of finish, and the window is five days, you need enough painters to complete that programme in the time available. We size the crew to the programme, not the other way around.

Before the quote: what we need to know

For an accurate fixed-price quotation on hospitality work, we need: floor plans or measured areas, confirmation of the programme window, existing finish condition (is strip-out required?), the desired finish specification (client's own spec or our recommendation), and whether work will be alongside other trades or in a cleared space.

Contact us here or request a quote for your hospitality project. We have experience working with project managers, interior designers, and directly with operators across London's restaurant and hotel sector.