Soho
Three Georgian houses on Frith Street, all creaking floorboards, four-poster beds and Victorian bathtubs. The essayist William Hazlitt died here in 1830, and I suspect he would happily have stayed a little longer.
There is no restaurant and no need for one: Soho is outside the door. The honesty bar in the library is the most civilised arrangement in London, provided one remains honest.
MayfairClaridge’sClaridge’s is less a hotel than a state of mind, and a very agreeable one at that. The Art Deco foyer, the black and white marble, the…C
MayfairThe ConnaughtThe Connaught is the quiet aristocrat of Carlos Place: polished mahogany, a staircase you could propose on, and a bar that has, I am…B
KnightsbridgeThe BerkeleyThe younger, more fashionable sibling of Claridge’s and The Connaught, The Berkeley wears its glamour lightly and its rooftop pool rather…R
PiccadillyThe RitzA Belle Époque fantasy of marble, ormolu and pink velvet, The Ritz remains the definition of the grand hotel in the minds of the world.…G
BelgraviaThe GoringFamily-owned since 1910, which in London hotel terms makes it practically feudal. The Goring is the last great hotel run by the family…B
MayfairBrown’s HotelLondon’s oldest hotel, where Kipling wrote and Alexander Graham Bell made a telephone call that he presumably regretted for the rest of his…