11 hotels · United Kingdom
The great hotels of London
11 luxury hotels in London are documented in this guide, ordered by international renown. The oldest, Brown's Hotel, opened in 1837; the most recent, Hotel Café Royal, in 2012. Each page gives the history, the key figures and a direct line to the events team.
The Ritz London
César Ritz’s 1906 Louis XVI hotel on Piccadilly, overlooking Green Park and known for tea in the Palm Court.
Savoy Hotel
Richard D’Oyly Carte’s 1889 hotel on the Strand, where César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier made their names.
267 rooms
The Dorchester
The 1931 Park Lane hotel facing Hyde Park, whose concrete structure made it a wartime refuge.
250 rooms
The Langham, London
Opened in 1865 as Europe's first purpose-built grand hotel, where Conan Doyle and Wilde dined in 1889 and each left with a commission.
380 rooms
Brown's Hotel
Opened in 1837 by Lord Byron's former valet and often called London's first hotel; Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone here in 1876.
115 rooms
The Goring
Owned by the Goring family since 1910, granted a Royal Warrant in 2013, and the Middleton family's base on the eve of the 2011 royal wedding.
69 rooms
The Connaught
A Mayfair hotel rebuilt in 1897 whose carved mahogany staircase leads to a dining room with three Michelin stars and the bar twice named the world's best.
121 rooms
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London
Two front doors, one onto Knightsbridge and one onto Hyde Park, and for decades the park door was reserved for royalty.
181 rooms
The Lanesborough
A Greek Revival hospital by the architect of the National Gallery, where Henry Gray worked, reborn in 1991 as a hotel with a butler on every floor.
93 rooms
The Berkeley
A rooftop pool with a sliding roof above Knightsbridge, in the 1972 building that took the Berkeley name from Piccadilly.
190 rooms
Hotel Café Royal
Oscar Wilde's Regent Street café of 1865, where David Bowie retired Ziggy Stardust, has been a hotel since 2012 with its gilded Grill Room intact.
160 rooms