Cool Hotels in London

The cool hotels in London that earn the description do so through atmosphere and a clear sense of place. Strong design, restaurants and bars that people actually want to be in, the kind of stay where the building shapes the day before you have even left the room. London has plenty of hotels. It has fewer that feel genuinely considered, where the neighbourhood is present, the interiors have a point of view and the whole thing holds together. These are the ones worth booking.

best for

• Design-led stays and longer weekends

• Travellers who notice architecture and atmosphere

• Hotels with a social life beyond the room

• Stays where the building shapes the experience

skip if

• You want predictable comfort over character

• You prefer larger chain hotels

• You want London built around convenience

Why Stay in a Cool Hotel in London?

Good design changes the experience of a city more than people often admit. It sharpens the way a place is felt, the light in the room, the weight of the materials, the mood of the spaces you move through without thinking. A well-designed hotel gives the trip a stronger sense of rhythm. But the best cool hotels in London go further than interiors. They have a relationship with the neighbourhood around them, a ground floor worth returning to, a building with enough character to make the stay feel specific to this city rather than transferable to another. For travellers who notice these things, the difference is immediate.

Hotels

The Ned

A Lutyens bank on Poultry that sat empty for five years before someone walked in and couldn’t leave.

Why stay here

The Midland Bank left in 2007 and the building sat empty until Ron Burkle walked in five years later and saw something worth saving. What he found was 92 verdite marble columns, walnut-panelled counters, a basement vault with a two-metre-wide door and safety deposit boxes that once held gold bullion worth £335 million. The original offices became 250 bedrooms, the secretaries’ offices became bathrooms. On the ground floor, 850 people can eat where the bank clerks once stood, across ten restaurants that keep the space moving from breakfast through late evening. The City of London empties at the weekend. The Ned does not.

Best for

Longer stays, grand-scale design and travellers who want London with real architectural weight behind it.

The Ned London exterior facade on Poultry in the City of London

NoMad London

A former magistrates court on Bow Street, where the jail cells became guest rooms and the courtroom became a ballroom.

Why stay here

The building was Bow Street Magistrates Court before NoMad arrived, and that history is still present in the bones of it. The original courtroom is now the Magistrates Ballroom. Some of the guest rooms were jail cells. Outside, the Royal Opera House sits directly opposite. Roman and Williams worked the tension between the building’s institutional weight and something warmer, hand-embroidered damasks, veined marble, custom limed-plaster walls and velvets that give the 91 rooms a richness the exterior never promises. The atrium restaurant holds the social energy through the day. Side Hustle goes later underground.

Best for

Design-led stays, later evenings and travellers who want a building with a story behind it.

Guest room at Nomad London with gallery wall and velvet chaise longue

Nomad London restaurant atrium with Art Nouveau lanterns and glass ceiling

The London EDITION

Five Georgian townhouses on Berners Street, where the Edwardian bones are still doing most of the work.

Why stay here

The building was the Berners Hotel long before it became the EDITION, the kind of place Virginia Woolf and Thomas Hardy used. Oak floors, wood-panelled walls and rooms designed to feel like the interior of a private yacht sit quietly against six-metre ceilings and original stucco above. Berners Tavern anchors the ground floor with chandeliers modelled on Grand Central Station and Jason Atherton’s seasonal British cooking. The Punch Room sits behind it, one of the better bars in this part of London. Soho is a short walk south. The building stays quieter.

Best for

Restaurant weekends, design-conscious stays and travellers who want central London with some distance from it.

Hart Shoreditch

Named after the cabinetmakers who worked this site in the 1800s, and designed to make sure you know it.

Why stay here

Hart takes its name from the Hart family, cabinetmakers who occupied this site in the 1800s, and Fabled Studio ran with that history rather than decorating over it. The bespoke lighting is shaped like cabinetmaker’s boxes. The staircase is wrought iron and copper. Sage velvets, woven linens and Kilim patterns replace the exposed brick and filament bulb Shoreditch that most hotels around here still lean on. Barboun downstairs serves Eastern Mediterranean sharing plates in a room worth staying for. On Great Eastern Street, closer to Old Street than Brick Lane, the hotel sits on the more composed edge of Shoreditch.

Best for

Design-conscious stays, later dinners and travellers who want Shoreditch with some craft behind it.

Guest room at Hart Shoreditch hotel with breakfast tray

UBA bar and lounge at Hart Shoreditch hotel London

Redchurch Townhouse

Redchurch Townhouse is Soho House without the membership, sitting above Cecconi’s on Shoreditch’s best street.

Why stay here

Cecconi’s on the ground floor runs from breakfast through dinner, the kind of room that fills with locals as much as guests. The building sits quietly on Redchurch Street, 37 rooms above a restaurant that already belongs to the neighbourhood. Upstairs, velvet sofas, mid-century pieces and Cowshed products give the rooms enough warmth to come back to. The design never overreaches. Shoreditch House is two minutes away if you need a pool. The street outside handles everything else.

Best for

Travellers who want East London’s best address with Cecconi’s downstairs and Soho House’s eye for a room.

Lounge at Redchurch Townhouse London with blue velvet sofa and bold artwork

Guest room at Redchurch Townhouse Shoreditch with checked curtains and street view

Where to Eat Nearby

Blanchette

In Soho, Blanchette keeps to a classic bistro format, small, busy, and slightly loud once the room fills. Tiled floors, vintage mirrors and closely set tables give it a familiar feel, while the menu leans into rich French cooking, charcuterie, escargots and plenty of butter. It’s indulgent without feeling heavy, the kind of place that doesn’t try to modernise itself.

Cool Hotels or Heritage Hotels?

The line between the two is thinner than it looks. Several hotels on this list sit inside historic buildings, but the distinction usually comes down to what the hotel does with that history. Heritage hotels lean into the age of the building, period details, traditional service, a sense of preservation. Cool hotels use the building as a starting point, layering design, atmosphere and a stronger social energy on top of it. If the room matters more than the story behind it, book heritage. If you want both, the list above makes a strong case.

STAY ELSEWHERE IN London

Cool Hotels in London

best for

skip if

Why Stay in a Cool Hotel in London?

Hotels

The Ned

NoMad London

The London EDITION

Hart Shoreditch

Redchurch Townhouse

Where to Eat Nearby

Blanchette

Cool Hotels or Heritage Hotels?

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