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When you come to London, you can’t help but get immersed in the excitement, the sights and sounds and the sheer variety of things to do, places to go, restaurants to try and pubs and bars to drink in! This guide to the very best of London – brought to you by the experienced staff of the Rathbone, one of the most popular central London boutique hotels – will help you get the very best from the world’s most cosmopolitan city.
An Ideal Location
The Rathbone is ideally located just a stone’s throw from all the action London has to offer. It’s the perfect base from which to explore the city. Located in the quietly tucked-away surroundings of Charlotte Street, the boutique Rathbone Hotel is just a short walk from Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road, the West End, Soho and London’s Theatreland. Everything you could possibly want is on your doorstep – from world-class restaurants and the finest museums to hundreds of pubs, restaurants and world class theatres.
Boutique Hotels in Central London
London has a host of accommodation options for visitors – from business hotels to luxury suites, hostels, child-friendly holiday apartments and everything and everything in between, But if you’re looking for that added unique flavour, then London’s small boutique hotels may be your answer. Among the best known of these boutique hotels in London’s West End is the Rathbone, which offers a perfect combination of affordability, tranquillity and quality – bringing style, comfort and an understated elegance to your stay without breaking the bank.
Located amid the quiet tranquillity of Fitzrovia, the Rathbone’s exceptional service and style has seen the hotel win a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor, while guests return time and again. Rathbone Street, Charlotte Street and Charlotte Place offer guests a haven of quirky shops, boutiques, restaurants, cafés and bars and when it’s time to paint the town red, you won’t have far to go (or to come back!)
Stylish, Cosmopolitan and Open All Hours!
Staying in central London means that you have the whole world on your doorstep, and we do literally mean the whole world! Walk down any major road in central London and you’ll hear dozens of different languages and dialects; look up and down any high street and you’ll find shops and goods from every country in the world and if you’re hungry, you can find restaurants, markets and food stores selling everything you could possibly want!
There is literally something for everyone in the city. Regardless if you’re two or 102, you can find cool, cheap second-hand clothes and wallet-bustingly expensive suits. You can buy a street burger or you can dine in luxury at one of the 62 Michelin-starred restaurants littering the city. Explore the world’s most famous artwork for free in London’s galleries and exhibitions or see the latest theatrical shows and musicals, comedy or music gigs. Sit and daydream in the stunning royal parks or explore two thousand years of history in the world-famous museums and London’s renowned historical sites.
As we said, there’s something for everyone and if you made plans to do something new every day and every night for five years, you’d still have a list as long as your arm to get through!
While the centre of London is open all hours and never goes to sleep, sometimes you have to, and there’s no better place to rest your head after a packed day and night out in London than at a boutique London hotel like the Rathbone.
What is a boutique hotel?
There are hotels and there are boutique hotels. For ever, hotels have done one thing very well. The big corporate chains provide beds and food to travellers and the travellers have been happy. Now, business travellers and tourists are a little more discerning and they want – demand – more.
They still need beds and food but they want to be surprised. They want to shift away from the clinical hotel chains and are prepared to look deeper and longer to find a special hotel. They don’t want hotels that look the same, have the same amenities and facilities, the same food and the same service levels.
Boutique hotels have been so called since the early 1980s when American entrepreneur (and co-owner of the infamous Studio 54 nightclub in New York) Steve Rubell opened the Morgans Hotel designed by French interior guru Andrée Putnam and compared it to a boutique.
So what sets a boutique hotel in central London apart from a boutique hotel in, say, New York? The answer is nothing really. The accepted convention is that one should have no more than 100 rooms (the Rathbone has 72), the architecture and interior design is distinct, warm and coordinated, combining detail with elegance. All criteria the Rathbone has in abundance!
As with all hotels, real success comes through a heady mix of location, the overall quality of the product on offer, the story of the hotel or building, consumer demand and a first-class approach to marketing and client satisfaction.
There are boutique hotels in central London, Paris, Miami, New York, San Francisco and LA and indeed, this type of bespoke approach has seen them spring up in almost every tourist location across the world. In fact, more and more of the big hotel chains are diversifying their offering to include smaller, more intimate hotels to reflect the changing tastes of consumers as well as remaining competitive in a supremely crowded – and constantly evolving – marketplace.
Central London – Eat, Drink and Shop!
As we’ve mentioned, in London’s city centre you can eat food from all over the world, from cheap tasty street food to fine dining on a world-class scale (with many of the restaurants actually located within the luxury hotels in central London) and if you’re staying in London, you have literally thousands of pubs and bars to choose from!
London is also famous for shopping, again from haute couture designer boutiques in and around Bond Street and South Moulton Street to the independent shops, second-hand and vintage shops and arts, crafts and books of Covent Garden and Soho. You can also explore the markets and the new air-conditioned shopping centres popping up wherever there’s space!
What To See in London
With over 2,000 years of history, London’s simply magnificent to explore! There’s so much to see and do that you can make plans every day for years and still not be able to cram it all in. With world-famous historical sites as well as some of the best museums in the world there’s always something new to explore. And if you need more, Theatreland – located just minutes from the Rathbone – is packed full of the latest shows and musicals, and every night you’ll find music gigs and comedy all over the city.
Boutique Central London Hotels – Why Choose The Rathbone?
There are many accommodation options when you visit London – but if you’re looking for a genuinely friendly boutique hotel in London city centre, look no further than the Rathbone. Our exemplary customer service combined with the amenities and facilities discerning guests expect, create an amazing experience all round.
The Rathbone offers guests exemplary service levels, Traditional rooms and that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ associated with boutique hotels in the heart of London.
Thanks to the fantastic feedback we receive on a consistent basis, TripAdvisor has awarded us a Certificate of Excellence to rank us among the very best boutique hotels in the centre of London, and we continue to focus each and every day on customer satisfaction in order to ensure our guests have the best possible stay.