The Kensington
With its grand, stucco facade, the Kensington is about at the eponymous neighborhood’s extensive, leafy side road. Certainly, the Victorian grandeur of its excessive ceilings, historical past decor, and open fireplaces evoke something of a bygone era. Yet, there’s also modernity to the colorful, contemporary fixtures and the attentive, unstuffy team of workers. It all combines to lend the non-public, acquainted vibe of a lovingly-restored mansion and complex individuals’ membership, in which every person seems like they belong.
The motel’s enviable vicinity in South Kensington method guests can wander to the elegant boutiques of Sloane Street and Kings Road and the colorful food markets and art galleries of Duke of York Square. Culture vultures might be held equally spellbound by using the treasures housed within the neighborhood’s world-famous museums, from the blue whale of the Natural History Museum to the five millennia of human creativity on the V&A.
Away from those properly-trodden routes, though, there are hidden gemstones to be observed – as advocated through the inn’s weekend curator, who selections out Exhibition Road, with its ‘conventional brickwork, sculptures, and bushes lining the wide-open street’ as ‘quintessentially London.’ For something more bijou, take a stroll down the bohemian yet specific South Kensington Mews.
And for retail therapy? Well, you’ll find all of it at Harrods, of direction, which, even in case you’re now not inside the marketplace for Chanel attire or Cartier necklaces, is well worth the experience if simplest to test out the food halls and marvel at the original Victorian tiles. The lately revitalized eating place Bibendum also has tremendous tiling – Art Deco this time – stained glass and is a super spot for a coffee. End the day returned at The Kensington’s K Bar, domestic to a groovy, assured atmosphere, urbane visitors, and innovative cocktails blended using the immaculate team of workers.
The Marylebone
It’s a comparable scene at The Marylebone – home to some of London’s most eye-catching suites, complete with outside terraces, in conjunction with the upscale Third Space pool and health club. Here, 108 Brasserie and 108 Bar spill out onto the cobbles of Marylebone Lane, their outdoor tables, greenery, and stylish lantern lighting fixtures recalling a Parisian café but mixing seamlessly into Marylebone’s innovative, compelling neighborhood.
It is Marylebone’s rich streak of unbiased agencies that supply rise to a ‘village’ sense. There is a wealth of cultural points of interest – from the present-day works of art of the Rebecca Hossack gallery to the classical splendor of the Wallace Collection; from the immaculately dressed A-listers of the Chiltern Firehouse to the intimate confines of the Wigmore Hall – and all just a quick stroll from the excitement of Bond Street, Oxford Street, and the West End.
Chiltern Street itself is emblematic of the neighborhood’s communal sense – home to an array of quirky independent boutiques, selling the entirety from whiskey and candles to woodwind devices and wedding ceremony dresses. Then there are the great meal stores: The Ginger Pig butchers; FishWorks for the pleasant fishcakes on the town; and, for lunch, the splendidly British sandwich bar – and local institution – Paul Rothe & Son. If, in the end, this, you’re after a sweet deal with (with an aspect of style), strive Cabbages and Frocks – a small excessive-end marketplace set within the grounds of St Marylebone Parish Church. The church becomes wherein poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning secretly married. One of Charles Dickens’ kids was baptized (he wrote six of his novels from a circle of relatives home nearby).
The Bloomsbury
For more creator references, The Bloomsbury is set amid the historical 18th-century neighborhood of the same call – a literary heartland that is home to The British Museum and a host of galleries, antiquarian bookshops, and a wealth of cultural background; it is also just five minutes from the boutiques and markets of Covent Garden, and London’s theatreland.
