Best London Hotels

It’s hard to believe that this opulent, hip Soho crash pad was once a parking garage. There’s a mural in the Refuel bar-restaurant that celebrates its more prosaic past. The hotel was opened by designers Kit and Tim Kemp in 2004, and the 91 rooms feature their signature vintage-style radios, thick velvet, natty stripes and gleaming white bedcovers. There are also honor bars, guest lounges, two movie theaters and spa-treatment rooms. This place is a honey pot for media and entertainment types, and has a buzzy, New York feel about it.

Ideally pitched for its Mayfair position, discreetly glamorous and purring with elegant chic, The Halkin has 41 rooms and suites, designed with Milanese sophistication by Edith Leschke, in soothing hues of taupe, cream and beige. Rooms are quietly luxurious havens of plenty and service is impeccable. It’s the type of place where the doorman will hurry out with an umbrella to shelter you from a moment’s rain. The hotel’s Thai restaurant, nahm, has an Australian chef (David Thompson) and a Michelin star.

This top London hotel is a glamorous townhouse with 50 rooms, all perfectly placed for a go at London’s theatre district. Contemporary British style rules within, with modern takes on pared-down chintz and neutral tones enlivened by flashes of vivid, yet muted, hues. The overall effect is exceedingly pretty. Besides rooms and suites, there’s an entire townhouse for rental, with up to five bedrooms, a lounge and kitchen. The Haymarket is also a serenely English place for afternoon tea, with cream teas starting from £9.50 per person.

One of the best London hotels for price and location, this Victorian villa in South Kensington has designer Kit Kemp’s savvy and seductive color combinations all over it. Location is handy for brisk walks to some of London’s finest attractions, including the Royal Albert Hall and Hyde Park. The shady garden and conservatory are a bonus on summer days, and there’s a gracious drawing room and library where the design is as pretty as a room full of butterflies—guaranteed to lift the spirits if skies are gray.

Once home to the Gargoyle club, this Georgian Soho townhouse now houses intimate dining rooms and a 39-room hotel, with rooms in tiny, small, medium and big sizes. Tiny rooms are barely bigger than the double beds they contain, but these most diminutive spaces are appealingly affordable for this scale of glamour and location. Décor features hand-painted Georgian wallpapers, vintage seats and sofas, antique-style bathtubs and bespoke Egyptian cotton linens; medium rooms have freestanding bathtubs in the rooms. Ambiance remains one of a select members club.

Why merely stay at a hotel, when you can rock the Casbah? One of the best London hotels at the lower end of the scale, the Pavilion manages an artistic edge, attracting a clientele of groovy funksters who dig its boho attitude and bold bordello-chic styling (lots of leopard print, velvet, gilt mirrors, damask and vintage fittings). The 30 themed rooms have names like “Green with Envy,” “Honky Tonk Afro” and “Flower Power.” It’s a popular London location for photo shoots and a favorite hangout for celebrities, musicians and models. Best of all, the prices are remarkably cheap.

A family-run place in a Georgian townhouse, Arran House is a small hotel that’s been operating as a lodging house since 1900. It’s set in London’s most literary district, and has rooms of different shapes and sizes, some with shared bathroom. It’s bright, clean and central, with a good sense of character—but don’t expect anything fancy. It’s a well-priced find for families, though rooms (and especially bathrooms) may feel cramped. Décor is simple B&B style, with red carpets and white walls, but rooms have surprisingly swish flat-screen TVs.