We spent one night at Malabar House, which I was excited about as I had heard good things. But I was sadly very underwhelmed. It's a great location, but when we arrived it was almost as if the Reception staff were on lunch, as there was one guy who checked us in, carried our bags upstairs and opened the room for us. There was no chat about meal times/restaurants/bars/wifi/afternoon tea/pool hours/spa or anything - most unlike every other hotel we had stayed in during our India trip. My husband ordered drinks/nibbles around the pool area and the service was slow.
It is a beautiful building, spotlessly clean but the service was impersonal and you could tell it was a hotel that was part of a chain rather than privately owned and managed.
