The best boutique hotels in London
An insider's guide to the best boutique hotels in London, featuring the top places to stay for period charm, hip cocktail bars, cool design, sumptuous interiors and great breakfasts, in locations including Soho, Knightsbridge, Marylebone, Clerkenwell and Pimlico.
Hazlitt's
Soho, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Former home of that master of English prose, William Hazlitt, who died in poverty in 1830 in one of three adjoining townhouses that form the hotel. Expect authenticity. The sloping, creaking floorboards have been retained (it can be an uphill walk to your bed) and the rooms are decorated with antiques, busts and prints. Named after people who frequented the houses in Hazlitt’s day, the rooms are delightfully different from those in most London hotels, all individually furnished, with free-standing bathtubs and Victorian fittings in the bathrooms. Read expert review From £199per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Artist Residence London
Pimlico, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The hotel occupies a handsome five-storey Regency terrace on Cambridge Street in Pimlico. The third Artist Residence – like its forebears in Brighton and Penzance – is firmly of the “boutique” variety: small and stylish, barely signposted, with a hip cocktail bar and restaurant downstairs. The decor offers quirky artwork, plenty of exposed brick, and all manner of rakish clutter – from Kilner jars and tea crates to authentic milking stools refashioned into bedside tables. Read expert review From £150per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Dorset Square Hotel
Marylebone, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The hotel stands within sight of Marylebone Station on a fairly busy side of leafy Dorset Square, which was the site of the first ever cricket ground and home to the Marylebone Cricket Club. Firmdale’s designer, Kit Kemp, can handle vibrant colour and contrasting, unusual fabric in a way that would be a disaster in other hands. Rooms combine scintillating design with uncomplicated, gadget-light comfort. Read expert review From £180per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Levin
Knightsbridge, London, England
9Telegraph expert rating
The Levin combines the luxury of a top hotel with the intimacy of a bed and breakfast. The lobby has delicious pistachio green walls, with a feel of the 1930s; the tiny lift is a nostalgic throwback. It has an immediately welcoming, secure and intimate feel… a haven. With fabrics by William Yeoward and Designer’s Guild, rooms are suave, with particularly good lighting. You’ll find it hard to leave: each one is equipped with a brilliant selection of pristine paperbacks and a Champagne bar: all the ingredients, and recipes, for the perfect Champagne cocktail. Read expert review From £228per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Portobello Hotel
Notting Hill, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The hotel sits in the middle of a quiet terrace of houses that back on to Stanley Gardens. Opened in 1971, the new owners have retained the charming furniture, including many Victorian baths, and concentrated on enhancing, rather than materially changing, the look and feel of the hotel. Rooms range from tiny but beautifully coloured attic rooms to No 16, where Kate Moss and Johnny Depp filled the Victorian bath with Champagne, and No 13, with its enormous four-poster bed that requires a set of steps to reach. Read expert review From £156per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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The Rockwell
Earls Court, London, England
7Telegraph expert rating
The interiors are great, with lovely flowers, lots of pale walls, claret silk curtains and fuchsia carpet in reception and Victorian patterned tiled floors. The sweet little high-walled garden at the back hosts barbecues in the summer. The 40 rooms (13 singles, worth remembering) are spacious and pretty without being chintzy; a nice break from pared down chic. The small, potentially charming dining room and bar overlook the garden, reached via a glass bridge, and serve good modern European food. Read expert review From £79per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Chiltern Firehouse
Marylebone, London, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Housed in a fire station dating from 1887, the building has huge charm. The street on which Chiltern Firehouse stands has been recently regenerated street and is now lined with interesting shops. The original façade has been restored and the former ladder shed is now the guest lobby; the engine house holds the restaurant, with bedrooms above; and the newly constructed extension in between holds the horseshoe-shaped bar and a courtyard for outdoor seating. Read expert review From £535per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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The Rookery
The City, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The Rookery is located between the City and the East End, by Smithfield Market, but distant enough not to hear meat trucks at 5am. Open fires, sumptuous Georgian detailing, wonky floors and bulging bookshelves complete the picture. There’s an Honesty Bar downstairs – and even a tiny garden terrace for the summer. There are 33 rooms and two singles. All are as quirky as the building, sharing only rich 18th-century colours, antiques, glowing woods and modernised mad plumbing. Read expert review From £149per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Dean Street Townhouse
Soho, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Neither superficially trendy nor boringly traditional, the rooms here are cool yet timeless, soothing yet spoiling, decorated to reflect the Georgian townhouse that contains them. Either handsomely panelled or prettily wallpapered, they have huge elegant beds piled high with pillows and bathrooms tiled in black and white, with big bottles of Cowshed products, a bowl full of thoughtful extras, and deliciously soft bathrobes (not those heavy toweling ones that practically floor you when you put them on). Read expert review From £110per night
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Ham Yard Hotel
Soho, London, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Ham Yard is a light-filled, spacious new build in an ‘urban village’ setting at the bottom of Regent Street, perfectly placed for Mayfair and Soho. It's all about fun here, from Kit Kemp's signature cosy-cool interiors to the neon light-lined bowling alley and bar. It’s flooded with light, there is a magical fourth floor roof terrace, with olive trees, lavender and vegetable beds. Don’t miss the mesmerising 135-dial digital clock and a wall of backlit Martha Freud pots in the restaurant. Read expert review From £312per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Zetter Townhouse, Marylebone
Marylebone, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
This quirky, 24-bedroom Georgian townhouse hotel to the north of Oxford Street makes a good-value base for shopping and sightseeing. Think fashionably eccentric interiors, a clubby vibe, and a cosy bar. Modelled on Sir John Soane’s museum in London, the interiors are clubby and intimate, with dark walls and a decadent, clandestine atmosphere. Reception shares space with a blood-red cocktail lounge (also used as a breakfast room), Seymour’s Parlour, a collector’s paradise. Hyde Park is just a stroll away. Read expert review From £221per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Laslett
Notting Hill, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Notting Hill is oddly short of decent hotels and The Laslett has stepped neatly into the gap, converting five Victorian terrace houses into a luxury hotel, one minute’s walk from Notting Hill Gate. Expect creative 'westies' in the bar, and food, artworks and décor supplied largely by local, frequently famous, talent. Prepare to name-check: a cool, restrained grey-and-white palette sets off lighting by Simon Day; art by Londoners — from Barbara Hulanicki of BIBA fame to artist-novelist Harland Miller; antiques by Jerome Dodd on the Golborne Road and super-chic flowers by Scarlet and Violet. Read expert review From £152per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Taj 51 Buckingham Gate Suites and Residences
Victoria, London, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Quite simply one of London’s finest hotels. The architecture — all meticulous scrollwork and theatrical bas reliefs — is gulp-inducing. Interiors have the panache to match — from the Kona dining room with peacock wallpaper and mosaic-print floors, to the lounge with gold textured walls and bowls of hot pink flowers strewn about. You are also compelled to slow down through the hallways here, which host 19th-century society oil paintings by Belfast-born Sir John Lavery — think gentlemen with stiff collars, and ladies with doe eyes and oversized hats. Read expert review From £280per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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45 Park Lane
Hyde Park, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The Dorchester’s precocious younger sister; and she’d like to think of herself as sexier too. The Art Deco building that hosts this hotel is exceptional. The curvaceous façade bristles with metal fins, and there’s a rather spectacular art installation on its side — a procession of bronze metal plates that soar to the eighth floor, and have a rippled, undulating effect when they catch the sun. The 1920s reigns in the lobby: think walls of varnished wood, and a huge statement, chrome-spoked cylindrical lamp that skims the ceiling. The Sixties-style black lacquer staircase and one-armed leather chairs of butterscotch seals the look, which whispers of wealth and subtle non-conformity. Read expert review From £421per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Flemings Mayfair
Mayfair, London, England
9Telegraph expert rating
Opened in 1851, Flemings expanded to encompass 13 townhouses on Half Moon and Clarges Street. For the past 40 years, the Gulhati family have owned it, and the presiding feel remains that of a small, warmly-welcoming hotel, with personal service geared to individual guests. The general manager, who was in charge of Flemings’ major redesign and directs a more modern approach is Henrik Muelhe, who knows about small, family-run London hotels from his time at The Capital and its sister The Levin in Knightsbridge. The bedrooms and suites are the work of Tony Filmer and are serene, glamourous, intelligent, mildly Art Deco. You feel like a traveller from a more graceful age in them. Read expert review From £200per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
