Café Royal

Café Royal has operated on Regent Street since 1865 — one of the few addresses in London where the history of the building is genuinely indistinguishable from the history of the city. Oscar Wilde drank here. Aubrey Beardsley drew here. Bowie, Jagger, Churchill, Betjeman — the list extends across every decade and every variety of the famous and the interesting that London produced. David Chipperfield Architects restored and rebuilt the hotel, reopening in 2012 as a 159-room property that made the correct decisions: preserve the Grill Room (the original 1865 dining room, now the Oscar Wilde Bar), build the new hotel behind and around it.

The result is a hotel where the historical room — the Oscar Wilde Bar — is the organizing principle, and everything else is arranged around it. This is the correct hierarchy.

Gold leaf ceiling, mirrored panels, red banquettes, a room continuous since 1865. There are better cocktails elsewhere in London. There is no better room.

The Café Royal entrance is on Air Street, slightly back from the Regent Street main carriageway — a decision that gives the arrival a quality of address rather than frontage. The Oscar Wilde Bar is immediately to hand upon entry.

The Bar — the former Grill Room, preserved in full — is the reveal: gold leaf ceiling, mirrored panels, red banquettes, a room that has remained continuous since 1865 and communicates it in every surface. This is the reason to come.

159 rooms across a building that combines the preserved Victorian sections with the Chipperfield new-build. The rooms in the new build are modern in their proportions — clean lines, well-specified. The rooms facing Regent Street are noisy; request an interior-facing or Air Street-facing room.

The Ten Room wellness spa occupies the lower ground floor and is among the better spa facilities in central London — a pool, comprehensive treatment menu, and the correct understanding that spa facilities should operate as destinations rather than afterthoughts.

The Oscar Wilde Bar is the primary food and drink destination and the reason to come regardless of whether you are staying. The room — the original 1865 Grill Room — serves afternoon tea, evening cocktails, and all-day light bites in one of the most extraordinary interior spaces in London.

The Green Bar, at street level, is the hotel's more contemporary lobby bar. The food menu is modest and appropriate.

Regent Street is equidistant between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus — at the intersection of London's major shopping, theatre, and entertainment geography. Carnaby Street is two minutes west. Jermyn Street is five minutes south. Soho is ten minutes east. Mayfair is ten minutes northwest.

Piccadilly Circus tube is a three-minute walk. Oxford Circus is five minutes. The Café Royal's location is, by the metric of places to walk to, the most central hotel address in London.