India › Chennai Hotels › La Woods Review
Updated: March 18, 2021
Essentials
• Location: Off Anna Salai, near LIC metro station.
• Hotel website: lawoodshotel.com
• Hotel phone: +91 (0)44 2860 8040
• Check prices for La Woods

Located close to a metro stop, La Woods offers affordable yet spacious rooms.
La Woods – Quiet, convenient, and inexpensive, with rooms as spacious as some five-star hotels.
La Woods serves a distinct purpose for anyone seeking a cheap hotel without a pool, gym, or opulent lobby with dangling chandeliers – and the low rates reflect this. Instead, guests can enjoy rooms larger than those regularly offered by hotels with much higher ratings. What’s more, a substantial breakfast is included and the staff is particularly helpful. It’s conveniently a short walk from a metro station (with direct links to the airport, bus/train stations, and downtown) and a fabulous mall (with a games arcade, cinema, and numerous places to eat).
See Also
La Woods – The Location
- Address: 1 Woods Road, just off a major thoroughfare, Anna Salai (Mount Road), in the inner southern suburbs.
- Nearest Metro: LIC metro station is just 400m from the hotel.
- Area: About 50m from the main road, which has a few facilities. Faces the comparatively quieter Woods Road, which is lined with shops and restaurants for local workers and residents. Busy area with a lot of roadwork and construction as it becomes more developed. Less than 500m from the excellent Express Avenue mall (see below).
- How to Get There: There are efficient pre-paid taxi counters at the domestic and international airports; the trip takes about 45 minutes (15 km). (Uber and Ola seem to be off-limits there.) The hotel is linked by metro to the airport, Central and Egmore train terminals, and CMBT (Koyambedu) bus station. See Local Transport below for more information.
La Woods – The Basics
- Guests: Interesting mix of business people and tourists from across India and elsewhere.
- Views: Rooms either face the main road at a distance (but may still suffer from traffic noise) or the back of other buildings (and are, therefore, quieter).
- Private Pools/Jacuzzis: Not expected or provided at this sort of budget-priced inner-city hotel.
- How to Book: Booking.com will have the best rates.
- Phone: +91 (0)44 2860 8040
- Email: reserve@lawoodshotel.com
- Website: lawoodshotel.com
La Woods – Amenities
- Pool & Fitness Center: Certainly not expected (or provided).
- Spa: Massages using traditional techniques can be arranged in the hotel through the reception.
La Woods – Food and Drink
- Restaurant & Bar: The Elwood is a rather posh name for the modest café on the ground floor. Hearty serves at pleasing prices all day, often using ingredients grown on the rooftop. Meals can also be served at The Bar (on the 3rd floor), which is dark, but offers well-priced drinks.
- Breakfast: Decent breakfast included, but more Indian-style than western.
- Room Service: Available from 7 am to 9 pm.
La Woods – Rooms
- Room Types: King Size Rooms • Twin Bed Rooms • List of all Rooms
- Smoking Rooms: Strictly no smoking anywhere on the premises.
- Best Room: Rooms are fairly similar inside, so the best is the quietest, i.e. on an upper floor and back from the roads.
- For Families: Little space in the rooms for an extra single bed, but the inexpensive rates make booking 2 adjoining rooms affordable, though they won’t have connecting doors.
La Woods – Local Transport
- Walking: Pleasant area to explore with sidewalks. Vibrant area, if a little chaotic, and fabulous mall less than 500m away.
- Public Transport: The metro offers services to both airport terminals, the major train and bus stations, and the city center. The nearest metro station – LIC – is about 400m from the hotel.
- Taxis & Auto-rickshaws: The black-and-yellow taxis at the airport are nowhere to be seen in the city. Instead, they have been replaced by the app-based Uber and Ola. Plenty of auto-rickshaws around but the drivers won’t use meters, so they usually cost more than Uber or Ola.
La Woods – What’s Nearby?
Best Nearby Restaurants & Bars
-
A few cheap cafés and restaurants along Woods Road, but better options elsewhere.
- Taj Club House – This modern hotel offers a number of classy options including: Club House (open 24 hours for contemporary Asian cuisine, including buffets and live music on most nights), Kefi (on the rooftop, featuring Mediterranean cuisine and stylish Greek-themed décor), and Blend (bar/lounge, which turns into a nightclub on weekends). Use the side entrance to the Taj hotel 100m down the road from the La Woods.
- Hotel Sennthur – Quick, tasty, and affordable vegetarian food. On the corner with the traffic lights only 200m down the main road from the hotel.
- Most guests will probably head to the fantastic Express Avenue mall (see below). It offers familiar outlets, such as Subway, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks, as well as numerous atractive cafés and restaurants, such as Chili’s American Grill and Cafe Coffee Day. And the food court is huge.
Nearby Shops
- A bonus is that La Woods is less than 500m from the world-class Express Avenue mall. Simply head down Woods Road, past the side entrance to the Taj Club House hotel. Huge range of bistros and boutiques over 5 levels, as well as one of India’s largest games arcades and a cinema complex that shows western films, too. Also, a few handicraft stores along the main road, just around the corner from La Woods.
La Woods – The Hotel

The unassuming La Woods hotel may not look much from the outside, but it’s more comfortable and spacious than the exterior suggests.

The hotel faces a quietish street only 50m from the main road through inner-city Chennai.

The layout of La Woods is quite pleasant (and elevators are also provided).

The lobby may not be opulent, but rates are substantially lower than hotels with rooms just as spacious.

On the rooftop, staff grow herbs and other organic ingredients to use at their café.

The unfussy guest lounge is indicative of this charming and affordable hotel.

The hotel café on the ground floor has a rather upmarket name, The Elwood.

The Elwood café serves hearty breakfasts to guests and other tasty Indian and western meals all day.

Interestingly, the hotel is also involved in the manufacture (and sale) of traditional-style copper products.

Rooms are pleasingly spacious – often as large as those in hotels charging far more.

The décor is bright and the bed, very comfortable.

All the mod-cons are provided, and full-length windows offer plenty of light.

The bathroom is larger than expected.

As a 3-story inner-city hotel, views are not expected to be noteworthy.

The hotel is about 50m from the main road, but is reasonably sheltered from traffic noise.

Along the main road, just around the corner from the hotel, are several handicraft stores.

La Woods is just down the namesake street, which is well-signposted from the main road.

The hotel faces Woods Road, which is lined with shops that are more for locals than tourists, but still interesting.

There are also numerous cheap restaurants within a few minutes’ walk of the hotel along Woods Road.

One of the finest local cafés is at Hotel Sennthur. It’s on the corner with the traffic lights only 200m down the main road from the hotel.

Most guests will probably eat and shop at the excellent Express Avenue mall, less than 500m from the hotel.

The mall offers 200+ places to eat, drink, and shop across 5 levels.

Starbucks is just one of several internationally-known outlets at the mall.

The food court at the Express Avenue mall is enormous.

There is so much to choose from in the food court at the Express Avenue mall, less than 500m from the hotel.

The games arcade at the mall is one of the largest in India.

Opposite the closest entrance to the mall from the hotel are several more good places to eat.

Only 100m down Woods Road is the side-entrance to Taj Club House, an opulent hotel offering several classy places to eat, including the Club House café.

The Club House café at the namesake hotel offers a popular (and uncommon) salad bar at lunchtime.

Also at the Taj Club House, the Blend bar/lounge turns into a nightclub on weekends.

Another good restaurant at the nearby Taj Club House hotel is the Mediterranean-style Kefi on the rooftop.

There are plenty of auto-rickshaws around the streets, but drivers seem to be pushier near the mall. Check rates and availability: La Woods
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