This Grade II-listed red-brick former fire station was for years the secret location of London’s most-anticipated new hotel. The key factor was André Balazs who, as the man behind the celeb-friendly Chateau Marmont in LA and New York’s Mercer, has a gift for creating exclusive hotels with incredible buzz.
The see-and-be-seen restaurant opened first, under visionary chef Nuno Mendes, and was immediately block-booked; ditto the 26 refined suites, each a model of intelligent, comforting design, retro of course, but not stuck in the past. Service is relaxed but crisp – exemplified by the note alongside the phone in each room, replacing the usual bookof instructions, simplyinstructing one to ‘Dial 0 for anything’.