Hotels in London That Pull the Pace Back
Notting Hill
Leafier streets, old pubs and a more residential side of London
Paddington
Canal walks, quieter terraces and practical central London
Spa Hotels
Wellness stays and a slower pace built into the experience
These are the quiet hotels in London we would book first, each chosen for how well they pull the pace back without losing sight of the city around them.
Named after the activist who organised the first Notting Hill Carnival, and built to feel like part of the neighbourhood.
Tracy Lowy grew up around this part of West London and it shows in how the hotel sits within it. Vintage finds from Portobello Road, furniture by British makers Pinch and Race, artwork by Barbara Hulanicki and photographs by local artists give the rooms a warmth that feels accumulated rather than designed. The Henderson Bar downstairs is named after Russ Henderson, one of the founding fathers of the Carnival. The ground floor stays open to locals as much as guests. Five Victorian townhouses, 51 rooms, and a building that already knew the neighbourhood before it became a hotel.
Longer Notting Hill stays, slower West London weekends and travellers who want a hotel already rooted in its streets.
A Victorian townhouse on Norfolk Square, designed as the imagined home of an aristocrat and his globetrotting wife.
Set on Norfolk Square a few minutes from Paddington Station, Grand Hotel Bellevue feels far removed from the movement around it. French group Lignée Hotels imagined the 60-room hotel as the London residence of a well-travelled couple with opposing tastes, and that tension runs through every room. Dark lacquered wood, ochre walls, Gothic cornicing and jewel-toned carpets sit alongside deep blue tapestries made in collaboration with New York designer Emily Bode and a bar inspired by British ties to India. The smallest rooms are built like ship cabins. The largest look out over the square’s garden. Paddington stays practical just outside.
A former Pimlico pub turned ten-room hotel, born from an ad on Gumtree and artists trading rooms for stays.
The building on Cambridge Street dates from 1852, originally a pub designed by Thomas Cubitt, the same man who shaped much of Belgravia and Pimlico around it. Justin Salisbury and Charlotte Newey restored it over two years, filling it with original art prints and vintage pieces sourced from galleries and antique shops across the UK and Europe. Ten rooms, each different, sit above The Cambridge Street Kitchen on the ground floor, which runs from breakfast through dinner and keeps the building connected to the neighbourhood. Pimlico is quieter than most of central London and the hotel reflects that without making a point of it.
A Victorian railway hotel on Norfolk Square, stripped back to its original bones and rebuilt around what was worth keeping.
The building was once the Royal Norfolk Hotel, a 19th century railway townhouse that had accumulated decades of paint, carpeting and unnecessary additions before the team behind it spent 300 hours restoring the grand wooden staircase alone. The lobby was replaced with a neighbourhood café. The water cabinet came from the Natural History Museum. The wall panels came from the mayor’s office in Derby. The lights were salvaged from a hospital. Two hundred year old mahogany parquet floors were brought back to their original state. Tom Dixon designed the carpets. The whole building moves at a pace that Paddington Station, one minute away, does not.
Design-led stays, shorter London trips and travellers who want Paddington without the usual chain hotel atmosphere.
Open since 1971 and still the Notting Hill hotel that musicians, actors and fashion people find their way back to.
The legend goes that Johnny Depp and Kate Moss filled the Victorian bath in Room 16 with champagne. Alice Cooper smuggled a boa constrictor in and fed it live mice from a nearby pet shop. Whether true or not, the stories fit the building. Set across two Victorian townhouses backing onto Stanley Gardens, the 21 rooms are individually designed with frescoes, antique furniture and an honesty bar that stays open late. Portobello Road is a short walk. The atmosphere has not changed much since the seventies.
Two Georgian townhouses on Ebury Street, part of the Grosvenor Estate for two hundred years.
The two houses were joined over a century ago to create a guesthouse, and the building has been running as a hotel ever since. Notable neighbours have included Mozart and Ian Fleming. A 2020 restoration kept the high ceilings, period cornices and original features intact while adding Farrow and Ball colour palettes and natural materials throughout. Twenty six rooms across four floors, a walled garden behind and The Buttery on the ground floor for breakfast. Belgravia stays quiet around it.
Notting Hill
Leafier streets, old pubs and a more residential side of London
Paddington
Canal walks, quieter terraces and practical central London
Heritage Hotels in London
Buildings that still carry traces of their original life
Our perspective
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