The building has been a hotel in one form or another since 1826, which tells you something about the address. The current structure — Grade II listed, Belle Époque interiors, ornate carved ceilings, marble-clad reception — dates from 1905 to 1911, designed by architect John Slater for the Berners Estate. It operated as the Berners Hotel through two world wars and the entirety of London's social history until Ian Schrager looked at it in 2013, saw what the bones could become, and opened the London Edition. It was his return to London after fifteen years — his first projects here were Sanderson and St Martins Lane, which changed what London thought a hotel could be. The Edition continued that argument.
The Berners Tavern is one of the most beautiful dining rooms in London. Hundreds of gilt-framed paintings floor to ceiling, a room with the controlled chaos of a serious collection.
The interiors were designed by Yabu Pushelberg, the Toronto-based firm whose work in hospitality has a particular quality: it creates spaces that feel like they belong to their city rather than to a global brand. The lobby at the London Edition is one of the better hotel lobbies in London — high ceilings, a sense of occasion, the kind of room that makes you stand still for a moment before walking further in. The Berners Tavern, the ground-floor restaurant, occupies what was once the hotel ballroom and is one of the most beautiful dining rooms in London. The walls are hung floor to ceiling with gilt-framed paintings — hundreds of them, arranged with the controlled chaos of a serious collection. Chef Jason Atherton originally oversaw the kitchen here. The standard has held.
173 rooms across eight floors of a Georgian building in Fitzrovia — which puts you at the meeting point of Soho, Covent Garden, the West End, and Oxford Street, within walking distance of all four without being overwhelmed by any of them. The rooms are smaller than you expect from the outside. They are better than you expect from the inside. The Punch Room — a wood-panelled cocktail bar serving what Edition describes as punch-based cocktails — is one of the more specific bar concepts in London and one of the better rooms in which to spend an evening.
What makes this a VV Pick is the location translated into usability. Fitzrovia sounds less central than Mayfair and less fashionable than Soho. In practice it is better than both for the person who wants to walk everywhere — you can reach eight neighborhoods in twenty minutes on foot from the London Edition and none of them requires a taxi. The hotel makes this geography work without ever making the point explicitly, which is the right way to handle a location advantage.