I stayed in the worst hotel in the world, where guests pay £189 a night to be shouted at and insulted… and I loved it, writes ANTONIA HOYLE

Maybe a hot drink will help me relax, I think, after I check into my hotel room. But there is no kettle, just the base of it lying haphazardly on the bedside table.

“Oh, that's a shame,” the disinterested receptionist replies sarcastically on the phone, before rejecting my request to have one sent. “Use the sink.”

How can tap water make a cup of tea, I ask? “Use your imagination,” she barks, before hanging up.

In the midst of a staffing crisis in the hospitality industry, you might think I'm being berated by a rogue employee who slipped through the hiring net.

In fact, she is being used specifically to insult because I am in a hotel that proudly describes itself as the worst in the world, where customer service is non-existent, condiments are thrown around at dinner and the basic hotel amenities – towels, toilet rolls, etc. – are conspicuous only by their absence.

Karen's Hotel in Barnet, north London, opened last month as an offshoot of Karen's Diner, a restaurant chain known for abusing its customers. It first launched in Australia in 2021 and arrived in Britain the following year.

The name Karen has become a byword on the Internet for the kind of midlife woman who complains about everything and routinely asks to “speak to the manager.”

So accusing people of being pilloried while eating at a restaurant with that name sounds like a suspect business plan.

But the brand has amassed 1.6 million followers so far and its videos have been viewed 3 billion times on TikTok, where children, parents and grandparents alike gather to upload photos of themselves while the wait staff, known as 'Karens', tells them to hurry.

There are seven branches in Britain, and famous fans include broadcaster Davina McCall, who last year described being called a 'stupid b*tch' at the Manchester branch as 'hilarious'.

So perhaps it was only a matter of time before Karen's expanded its business to overnight stays. But who on earth will appeal to this masochistic chaos?

“Anyone who not only wants to be roasted during the day, but also feels the need to be roasted all night long,” says Paul Levin of Karen's Diner. By “toasted,” he means “comically abused,” a form of “escapism” that he sees as Karen's underlying appeal. The only requirements for guests? Thick skin and a sense of humor.

I have neither, unfortunately. Sensitive, socially awkward and conflict-averse, I don't joke and rarely understand jokes. Being satirized is my idea of ​​a nightmare. But could facing my fears be the solution? Could my £189 'Karen Experience', including dinner, finally make me stronger and teach me to laugh at myself more?

My heart is pounding wildly when I arrive at the reception. After a few minutes of waiting, a sullen girl with corkscrew curls, baggy pants, a scowl, a red apron with “Farah” scrawled on the front, and dirty sneakers, finally emerges.

One of the three Karens who will look after me during my stay, guides me to my room with a grunt. “Go away, Grandma!” she barks as I struggle up the stairs with my luggage, before asking, “Do you want help?” I nod hopefully. “I don't care,” she says, as she rushes past to open my door.

Inside, my room looks like it was trashed by a five-year-old on a sugar high. The lamps have fallen over and milk and coffee bags have been thrown over an unmade bed. A toilet roll is thrown over the mirror and a hideous brown blanket with a Karen emoji printed on it (graduated blonde bob not much different from mine, I realize with horror) is thrown to the floor.

I venture into the bathroom and scream: there's a huge spider on the soap dish in the shower, its long black legs not immediately obvious as being fake. Frizzy hair (from the fake tarantula, I hope) lining the shower tray, along with empty shampoo bottles.

The toilet seat is up, a cardboard toilet roll tube has been thrown into the bowl and soap has been smeared over the taps. I take the tube out when the phone rings. It's Farah, mainly with a manhunt joke. “Uh, who's there?” I ask. 'A zoo with only dogs in it. What is it called?' My mind goes blank as she shouts, “a Shih Tzu,” and before my stressed-out brain gets the punchline, she shouts, “F***ING LAUGH.”

I nervously blurt out that I have no sense of humor. 'I can say. You have a face like a spanked ass,” she says.

As I get ready for dinner, a flood of calls come in, including a joke that I'm in a nursing home and a request to take a shower “because it smells like fish and we have clients.” Is this funny? I'm not sure.

It becomes clear that I will be targeted because of my gender, age (45, 'dementia is already starting to strike') and class ('posh t***') when the banging on the door makes me feel out of sorts jump.

This time Farah brought along a sidekick, Ashley, snarky in a black crop top, leggings and Crocs. The pair leer at me from my doorway – apparently just here to say I need my roots.

Guests certainly don't get a shortage of attention here, but in an age of narcissism and non-existent customer service, it might be better to be deceived than ignored, even if George, my third 'Karen', calls me a 'perv' when I accidentally hit his elbow and hurl my requested toilet roll across the room.

Of course, there's a fine line between banter and abuse, as the franchise has sadly found out. Last year, Karen's Diner apologized to an Australian family after a waiter called a father eating at the restaurant a “pedophile” and asked if his 14-year-old daughter, who they called a “slut,” had an account on the porn site Only fans.

Swearing may be rife, but it is not overly encouraged, insists Levin, who admits, however, that “nervous young Karens swear too much to laugh at it.” If they do it a lot, we'll pick them up.'

Despite the profanity, he says that 40 percent of customers are families and that “if you have young children and parents think it's responsible, that's on you.”

Body shaming is forbidden, but fashion sense and personal care choices are fair game.

As I walk into the neon pink and purple 1950s-style restaurant, full of alternative slogans (“Vegan? Get a Life,” “Don't ask about our day. We don't care about yours”), I'm told my The red dress with ruffles resembles a cabbage, while the €13.95 Karen's Pathetic Single – a burger served with fries – is unceremoniously placed in front of my eyes, along with ketchup sachets that land on my head.

Customers have to eat in custom-made paper hats – mine reads “Birth Certificate Says 'Expired'” – and after I eat my (admittedly tasty) burger, I'm told to draw a picture of a Karen – an activity which I find comfortingly calming until Ashley takes it off me and tears it into pieces.

“You can't color well at your old ass age,” she shouts. “You've been on this earth for about 100 years.” Later I find out that Ashley is 17 and Farah is 19. No wonder they think I'm old.

However, I am becoming increasingly desensitized to the insults, and when cleaners Chantelle and Louise, both 43, and Mary arrive at the restaurant to celebrate Mary's 60th birthday, my mood improves with another female party, especially as Mary is now the designated 'eldest woman' ' is. **ch'. When she jokes that the perfectly beautiful long blonde hairstyle she's being insulted for is a “midlife crisis,” Ashley says, “It's not a midlife crisis.” It's the end of life.'

Louise good-naturedly replies that Mary is, in fact, a cool “gangsta grandma.”

“She's selling drugs outside the town hall, isn't she?” Farah jokes, perhaps unprepared for Mary's comeback: “We're all basically recovering addicts.” We are from Cocaine Anonymous.'

Now that I've established that it's not a joke – it is that kind of place, after all – I learn that Mary, now almost three years clean, was once only given six months to live. End of life indeed.

The insults may cut to the bone, but that only makes the women's laughter more raucous.

As we are forced to stage an impromptu fashion show on the catwalk – I have to walk to Grandma We Love You by the St. Winifred's School Choir – I realize that as ageist, sexist, immature and wildly inappropriate as the digs are, they are dusty social broke boundaries and created a feeling of intimacy. I'm having fun, against all odds.

Or was… I go back to my room to find my pillows gone, an iron in place 'to keep me warm' and more fake spiders everywhere. At 9pm there's a loud banging on the door, causing my biggest scream yet. They are Farah and Ashley with a personal drawing of me as 'Anton' full of gray hair and a 'Karen cut'. Maybe I have Stockholm syndrome, but I feel strangely affected.

Exhausted from hours of insults, I dig out the remaining milk cartons and coffee bags from under the duvet and eventually fall into a fitful sleep, wondering if maybe I have thicker skin than I thought.

When I check out the next morning, there is no sign of my trio of tormentors, my Karen Experience apparently cut short at dawn. I give my key back, and when the receptionist on the spot says I'm having a nice day, I'm slightly disappointed.