The most romantic hotels in London

Sexy, smart and satisfyingly shut away from the capital's streets

15 August 2023

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For a Valentine's Day date, a honeymoon or a romantic weekend break at any other time of year, some of the most romantic hotels in the world can be found in ye old London town. Think four-poster beds, balcony bath tubs and hush-hush mews addresses. The London hotels on this list are less about their convenient location, buzzing bar scene or family-friendly room service options. Instead we've chosen these boutique boltholes for their beautiful bedrooms, cosy restaurants and swoon-worthy views.

Patricia Portman
Home House, Marylebone
One of the prettiest boutique hotels in London is also one of the most secret – squirrelled away within a grand Georgian townhouse on Marylebone’s leafy Portman Square. The address is better known as Home House, a private member’s club spread across three neighbouring houses and comprising an eccentrically decadent maze of restaurants, bars, a boutique gym and health spa, a courtyard garden and 23 bedrooms. Each bedroom overflows with unique period charm – expect grand chandeliers, chintz fabrics, original fireplaces and antique furniture. For the ultimate in romance-novel decadence, reserve the Lady Patricia Portman room, resplendent with intricate 1820’s hand-painted Chinese Chi’en Lung silk paper, windows overlooking the courtyard and an Art Deco ensuite bathroom with claw-foot tub. In the summer, take supper in the courtyard garden, where a barbecue is fired up to grill lamb cutlets to perfection. If the weather doesn’t permit, curl up in a cosy tapestry-covered booth at the house restaurant with a glass of Champagne and fresh Poole Rock oysters. Whatever the season, don’t miss their smooth and sexy Signature G&T, made using Home House’s very own gin, along with tonic, mango bitters and dried mango.
Address: 20 Portman Square, London W1H 6LW
Price: Rooms from about £258 per night
Book your stay: Booking.com
The Standard
The Standard, King's Cross
There are a lot of very good reasons to stay at The Standard for a romantic getaway: it’s incredibly well located, rooms are very slick and stylish and there’s a rooftop bar and impressive restaurant with unparalleled views of the city. But really, all we should need to say is ‘bath on the balcony’. Opt for a Junior Suite Terrace, have a bottle of fizz delivered to the room and enjoy getting steamy in an alfresco tub overlooking the ornate St Pancras Renaissance Hotel opposite. Read our full review of The Standard London.
Address: 10 Argyle St, London WC1H 8EG
Price: Rooms from about £239 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
Hazlitt’s, Soho
After a romantic supper in Soho, you won’t find a more atmospheric bolthole to stumble back to than Hazlitt’s. Tucked away in an unassuming Georgian Townhouse just off Soho Square, this discreet hotel is like stepping into a wonderful time warp: there are four-poster beds, luscious silk drapery, velvet sofas and quirky details aplenty. Cuddle up by the fire in the sitting room while having a browse of the impressive cabinet of signed books (Hazlitt’s is a favourite of thespians and authors alike) or pour a tipple from the honesty bar and take it back to your room to drink in the freestanding tub. Thankfully, check out is a very sociable midday for a leisurely breakfast in bed. Read our full review of Hazlitt's.
Address: 6 Frith St, London W1D 3JA
Price: Rooms from about £179 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
Artist Residence London, Pimlico
It’s hard to know which room to plump for at this former Pimlico pub with a shady past. Each of the 10 bedrooms in Artist Residence London is completely unique; decorated with antiques, art and beautiful interior detailing, they make you wish your own home was more like this. The apartment-sized Grand Suite has a super-king size iron four-poster, while the Loft has a big bathtub beside the window, walls clad in reclaimed wood that transports you to alpine peaks, and a gate headboard you can really hang on to. Down in the basement, find the Clarendon Cocktail Cellar, dark and louche.
Address: 52 Cambridge St, Pimlico, London SW1V 4JD
Price: Rooms from about £264 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com

Shangri-La Hotel At The Shard, London Bridge
There’s a sensation of being separated from the real world at the Shangri-La Hotel At The Shard, rather like floating in space. Up the top you can sip champagne over afternoon tea, dine above the clouds at Aqua Shard, one of London's most romantic restaurants, or stay a little longer at Shangri-La Hotel. The rooms are elegant and contemporary with motifs of Japanese cherry blossom, have huge beds dressed in Frette linen and walk-in showers. But, of course, the USP here is the floor-to-ceiling windows and kick-arse views across London to the hills beyond. Those glass walls may thrill your inner exhibitionist, though up here on floors 34 to 52 (where there’s also a cocktail bar and the city’s highest swimming pool), you can’t really be seen. Read the full review of the Shangri-La Hotel At The Shard.
Address: 31 St Thomas St, London SE1 9QU
Price: Rooms from about £595 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
The Ned, Bank
Opulence: that’s the word that comes to mind when thinking about The Ned. The member’s club and hotel right under the nose of the Bank of England are big, bold and beautiful: the choice is plentiful (there are six different restaurants), ceilings are high and drinks are fast-flowing. It’s large enough to feel thrillingly anonymous, but there are plenty of quiet corners, like the Library Bar, to get cosy in before you sneak back up to your room. Plump for a Heritage room on the Grade-I listed fifth floor for full 1920’s grandeur. Read our full review of The Ned.
Address: 27 Poultry, London EC2R 8AJ
Price: Rooms from about £306 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
Simon Upton
NoMad London, Covent Garden
One of our favourite hotels in the city is also one of London’s most romantic spots. Slap bang in the middle of Covent Garden, just across from the iconic curves and swerves of the Royal Opera House, NoMad brings NYC cool to London, with a grand central atrium restaurant which is the place to be seen – and a rather fun date spot if you can bag a table. Rooms are elegant and wistful, with clawfoot bedroom baths peeking out behind discreet modesty screens (for those feeling bashful), tactile velvet trimmings and shimmering golden mosaic bathroom tiles. Read our full review of the NoMad London.
Address: 28 Bow St, London WC2E 7AW
Price: Rooms from about £356 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
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The Beaumont, Mayfair
Impress a culturally-savvy date by taking them to spend the night inside an actual work of art. Room by Anthony Gormley looks just like a chunky crouching figure perched awkwardly on the outside of the Mayfair Art Deco building but the inside is a whole other story. The rest of the suite is in keeping with the hotel’s other rooms – 1920’s details and marble bathrooms – but behind a black velvet curtain and up a dramatic staircase, the bedroom (in the sculpture’s belly) is a dark, quiet and intensely private space. The high wood-panelled bare walls and a small sliver of a window showing only a flash of the sky make it the perfect place to switch off from the outside world and concentrate on the company. Read our full review of The Beaumont.
Address: 8 Balderton St, Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF
Price: Rooms from £706 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com

The Mandrake, Fitzrovia
Enter this romantic hideaway through a dimly lit tunnel and find an open-air courtyard adorned with cascading plants. Head straight to the bar (one of our best bars in London) for botanical cocktails infused with ingredients from the hotel’s greenhouse on the upper-floor terrace. Then, wined and dined, retire to the Mandrake Suite where there’s a freestanding claw-foot bathtub in the Carrara marble bathroom and king-sized, Bedouin-style tented bed. Read our full review of the Mandrake hotel.
Address: 20-21 Newman St, London W1T 1PG
Price: Rooms from about £298 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
Kettner’s Townhouse, Soho
The Jacobean Suite was once the private dining room above Kettner’s – a French restaurant that was known as a location for Soho revelry and liaisons dangereuses. Stories of disrepute between its oak-panelled walls abound; Oscar Wilde wined and dined his rent boys here and Edward VII even had a secret tunnel dug across to the Palace Theatre over the street so his mistress Lillie Langtry could slip inside unseen. There’s still a discreet back staircase running straight from the Jacobean Suite to its own door on Greek Street. In this Art Nouveau corner suite there’s a knockout canopy bed, neighbourhood-inspired artworks – referencing Soho signage and ladies of the night – a big roll-top bath and windows overlooking the action of Romilly Street and Greek Street. There’s also a well-stocked bar and enough seating for all your closest friends, or the ones you just met in the Champagne bar downstairs. Read our full review of Kettner's Townhouse.
Address: 29 Romilly St, London W1D 5AL
Price: Rooms from about £275 per night
Book your stay: Soho House
Zetter Townhouse Clerkenwell
You leave the real world behind when you step off St John’s Square in Clerkenwell and into the deliciously eccentric Zetter Townhouse Cocktail Lounge. Tipped as one of the most romantic bars in London, the lounge is filled with collections of curiousities, taxidermy and surreal Victoriana. Such imaginative accessorising continues upstairs in the bedrooms. The mid-range ‘Townhouse Deluxe’ are particularly enticing, with bold-coloured walls, rich textiles and showstopping beds. If the bathroom is where you shine, request the Deluxe with the gold-tiled recessed tub that’s framed by antique carved bedposts, no less.
Address: 49-50 St John's Sq, London EC1V 4JJ
Price: Rooms from about £196 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com
L’Oscar, Bloomsbury
L’Oscar is set within a renovated Baptist church in Bloomsbury, but there’s nothing puritanical about its Jacques Garcia-designed interiors. This is the height of over-the-top flamboyance: smoked mirrors, Baroque flourishes, deep colours and textured surfaces from layers of velvet and silk to embellished ceilings and marble floors. The L’Oscar Suite is the hotel’s bad boy, but even the come-hither red and gold of the Standard Queens leave nothing to the imagination. Read our full review of L'Oscar hotel, London.
Address: 2-6 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AA
Price: Rooms from about £310 per night
Book your stay: Expedia Book your stay: Booking.com

TopicsPlaces To Stay London UK Europe Romantic Breaks

Home House, Marylebone

The Standard, King's Cross

Hazlitt’s, Soho

Artist Residence London, Pimlico

Shangri-La Hotel At The Shard, London Bridge

The Ned, Bank

NoMad London, Covent Garden

The Beaumont, Mayfair

The Mandrake, Fitzrovia

Kettner’s Townhouse, Soho

Zetter Townhouse Clerkenwell

L’Oscar, Bloomsbury