Raffles at the OWO

The Old War Office on Whitehall operated as the nerve center of British military intelligence and command from 1906 to 2016 — a Baroque Revival building by William Young that hosted Churchill's wartime operations, Ian Fleming's early career (the rooms that informed James Bond), and a century of consequential decisions. Hinduja Group and Raffles Hotels opened it in 2023 as the most architecturally significant hotel in London: 120 rooms, 85 branded residences, and 11 restaurants and bars across a 580,000-square-foot Whitehall block.

Churchill planned D-Day here. Ian Fleming's early career happened in these offices. The hotel carries the history seriously.

Mauro Colagreco (three Michelin stars at Mirazur) opened Saborare here, his first London restaurant. The wine cellar operation is said to hold the longest wine list in the country. The spa occupies what were once the ministerial offices.

The Whitehall facade is the reason the building exists: Baroque Revival stone, the drum tower at the corner of Horse Guards Avenue, the scale of an institution that commanded an empire. The hotel entrance is off Whitehall, and the transition from the street to the interior is one of the more dramatic arrivals in London.

The inner courtyard, visible from the main entry, was where the war office's senior officers once reviewed dispatches. It is now a bar. This is either disturbing or wonderful. We think wonderful.

120 rooms across 580,000 square feet — the ratio is extremely favorable. Each room benefits from the kind of space in the corridors, the stairwells, and the common areas that only exists in a building designed for institutional purposes. The rooms are large by London standards. The ceilings are high. The windows are the tall, articulated kind that a 1906 government building specifies.

The suites on the ministerial floors — where the rooms were originally senior officers' private offices — are among the most distinctive hotel rooms in London: not because of their decoration but because of the weight of what happened in these rooms and the integrity with which the conversion has handled that history.

Eleven restaurants and bars across a building of this scale means the food-and-drink offering is a destination in its own right. Saborare — Mauro Colagreco's first London restaurant, tasting menu format — is the headline. The Gurkha Bar references the building's military history correctly.

The wine cellar operation — the longest wine list in the country, organized around the building's original storage infrastructure — offers cellar dinners that are limited and require advance booking. Worth planning around.

Whitehall is the civic spine of London — the street that connects Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square, lined with the buildings that run the British state. The Cabinet Office, Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards — this is the address from which London governs itself.

St. James's Park is directly accessible from the hotel. Downing Street is two minutes on foot. The National Gallery and Trafalgar Square are ten minutes. Westminster tube (Jubilee and District lines) is an eight-minute walk.