The top two floors were replaced by a four-storey, 14-bedroom extension that included a penthouse with swimming pool, gym, private lake, and 1,800 sq ft (170 m2) grand salon.

[10] A 22 m-deep (72 ft) excavation was dug beneath the Art Deco 1920s extension to create a five-level basement.

[12] Actors, directors, and entertainers who have used Claridge's include Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, regular visitor Alfred Hitchcock, Brad Pitt, Joan Collins, Mick Jagger, U2 and Whitney Houston.

[citation needed] In his memoir The Moon's a Balloon, David Niven wrote that for film producer Alexander Korda, "Home was the penthouse at Claridge's".

The hotel lobby and several guestrooms appear in the 2001 Stephen Poliakoff's BBC television drama Perfect Strangers.

[13] During the Second World War, the King of Yugoslavia and his wife spent much of the Second World War in exile at Claridge's, and suite 212 was supposedly ceded by the United Kingdom to Yugoslavia for a single day (17 July 1945) to allow their heir, Crown Prince Alexander, to be born on Yugoslav soil,[14] although no documentary evidence now exists to support the story.

[15] At the end of the Second World War, when unexpectedly defeated in the general election of 1945, Winston Churchill was temporarily without a London home and took a suite at Claridge's.

[19] A cafe at the back of the hotel opened in 2023 called The ArtSpace Café [20] which has an extensive gallery space beneath it.

For 12 years, the fine dining main restaurant was run by Gordon Ramsay, with various head chefs including Steve Allen and Mark Sargeant.

[25] Claridge's later replaced Ramsay's restaurant with Fera, meaning 'Wild' in Latin, run by chef Simon Rogan.

Owner René Redzepi and his head chef and staff from Noma served a £195-per-head nine-course New Nordic Cuisine menu that included scones and clotted cream, Lancashire hotpot with British ingredients, and live ants foraged in Denmark and flown to London.

[35] Downton created the Talking Heads Gallery, which displayed sketches from guests including Kristin Scott Thomas, Sarah Jessica Parker and Thandiwe Newton.