The best luxury hotels in London are no longer the famous ones, and the gap is now wide enough to matter.
London has more genuinely great hotels than any city in Europe, and it has just had the biggest wave of luxury openings in its history. That is good news and it also makes the choice harder, because the old certainties no longer hold: the grandest name is not automatically the best stay, and several of the newest rooms are better than the institutions charging the same money.
This is how the field actually breaks down.
Checked in September 2026 and rechecked on 2 October 2026
One error was found and it mattered. This page recommended Mandarin Oriental Mayfair on the strength of a 25 metre pool that the hotel does not have. The correction is below in full.
Confirmed against the hotels’ own pages: Raffles London at The OWO has 120 guest rooms and suites, its Guerlain Spa runs to 27,000 square feet over four floors with a 20 metre pool and nine treatment rooms, and Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park’s pool is 17 metres. Room counts that a hotel does not publish, including Mandarin Oriental Mayfair’s, are no longer stated here as fact.
The institutions
The Savoy is where modern luxury hospitality was more or less invented. It opened in 1889 with en-suite bathrooms, electric lighting and the first American bar in Europe, none of which existed in hotels before. It is still a genuine event to stay in, and the river-facing rooms are the ones to ask for.
The Savoy
- Address
- Savoy Court, off the Strand, WC2R
- Nearest
- Charing Cross, Embankment or Covent Garden
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Price
- No formal dress code, but guests are asked to dress elegantly and sports jerseys are not permitted
- Standing
- Opened 1889, and the approach is up Savoy Court, the only road in Britain you drive on the right
How to get in
You do not have to be staying to use it: the American Bar opens at midday and the dining rooms serve non residents. Ask for a river facing room by name rather than by category, because the ones over the courtyard are the same grade and not the same stay. The whole hotel is 14 and over.
Claridge’s is the one Londoners name first. Art deco, Mayfair, and the most reliably excellent service in the city. It is not the most exciting hotel in London and it does not need to be.
Claridge’s
- Address
- Brook Street, Mayfair, W1K 4HR
- Nearest
- Bond Street
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Standing
- The one Londoners name first, and art deco throughout
How to get in
A minute from Bond Street station, which makes it the easiest of the grand hotels to reach with luggage. The foyer serves afternoon tea to non residents and books up furthest ahead of any room in the building, so treat that as a separate reservation made weeks earlier.
The Connaught pulls off the hardest trick of the group: it is both the most elegant and the most intimate. The Carlos Place entrance, the mahogany corridors, Hélène Darroze’s restaurant, and a bar that is separately one of the best in the world. If you want the grand London hotel experience without the scale, this is it.
The Connaught
- Address
- Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1K 2AL
- Nearest
- Bond Street or Green Park
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Standing
- The smallest of the Mayfair grandes dames, and the most intimate
How to get in
The bar is open to anyone and takes no reservations at all, so you can have the best of this hotel without staying in it: arrive before six and you will get a seat. Carlos Place is a quiet square rather than a main road, which is most of why the rooms are quiet.
The Ritz is the most formal, and still enforces a jacket and tie in parts of the hotel. Whether that is charming or absurd is a matter of taste, and it is entirely aware of both readings.
The Ritz London
- Address
- 150 Piccadilly, W1J 9BR
- Nearest
- Green Park
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Price
- A jacket and tie are required in parts of the hotel
- Standing
- The most formal of the London grand hotels
How to get in
The dress code is the thing to plan for rather than the room: a jacket and tie are required in parts of the hotel and are enforced, so arriving in an open collar can cost you the booking you made months ago. Afternoon tea is the usual reason non residents come, and it is booked well ahead.
The new wave, which is genuinely worth the attention
The Peninsula at Hyde Park Corner is the biggest arrival in decades: a £1bn, 190-room purpose-built palazzo, architecture by Hopkins, interiors by Peter Marino. From the rooftop you look down into the back garden of Buckingham Palace, which is not a view any other hotel can sell you.
The Peninsula London
- Nearest
- Hyde Park Corner
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Standing
- Purpose built, 190 rooms, architecture by Hopkins and interiors by Peter Marino
How to get in
The only new build among the grand hotels, which is why the rooms are larger than anything of comparable price in Mayfair. The rooftop looks down into the back garden of Buckingham Palace and no other hotel in London can offer that. Their own website blocked our checks, so confirm the detail with them directly.
Raffles London at The OWO is the old War Office on Whitehall converted into a 120-room hotel, with interiors by the late Thierry Despont that keep the heavy wood panelling and institutional grandeur of the original building. Nine restaurants and bars inside, including one from Mauro Colagreco. It is the most characterful of the new openings, because the building was already extraordinary.
Raffles London at The OWO
- Address
- Whitehall, SW1A 2BX
- Nearest
- Westminster, Charing Cross or Embankment
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Standing
- The old War Office, 120 rooms and nine restaurants and bars
How to get in
Nine restaurants and bars inside one building, most of them open to non residents, which makes this the easiest of the new hotels to see without booking a room. It is on Whitehall itself, so the walk to Westminster and the river is a few minutes and the streets empty completely at the weekend.
Mandarin Oriental Mayfair at 22 Hanover Square, W1S 1JP, is the small one, described by the group in its own words as a sleek, boutique hotel. It has a spa open 9am to 9pm, and it also sells serviced residences with their own entrance lobbies and kitchens, which is the more interesting thing about it.
A correction worth making loudly, because this page previously got it wrong. The 25 metre pool often attached to this hotel does not exist. Mandarin Oriental Mayfair’s own wellness page lists a spa, treatments, fitness, memberships and yoga and pilates, and no swimming pool at all.
The pool is at the group’s other London hotel. Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park has a 17 metre twin-lane heated indoor pool at its Fitness Centre, open 6:30am to 9:30pm, with the spa running 9am to 9pm and the gym open 24 hours. Seventeen metres, not twenty five, and a different hotel a mile away. If a pool is the reason you are choosing, choose Hyde Park.
Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
- Address
- 22 Hanover Square, W1S 1JP
- Nearest
- Oxford Circus or Bond Street
- Booking
- Book direct and ask at the time of booking
- Standing
- A boutique hotel in the group’s own words, with a spa open 9am to 9pm and serviced residences alongside the rooms
How to get in
There is no swimming pool here, whatever you have read: the hotel’s own wellness page lists a spa, fitness, memberships and yoga and pilates and no pool. The 17 metre pool belongs to Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, a mile away. What this one offers instead is scale: small enough that the service is closer to a townhouse than a grand hotel, with residences that have their own entrance lobby and kitchen.
Choosing by what you are actually here for
Business in the City. Stay in the City or at Canary Wharf and enjoy the fact that both empty at weekends. Rates drop sharply Friday to Sunday for exactly that reason, which is the single best value arbitrage in London hotels.
An occasion. Mayfair or St James’s. You are paying for the address and the quiet streets, and both deliver.
A short trip with a lot to see. Covent Garden, Soho or the South Bank. Less grand, far more walkable, and you will spend less time on the Underground.
Value without a bad area. Bayswater, Paddington and Marylebone all sit central, cost meaningfully less than Mayfair, and are a short walk or one stop from where you are going.
What five star actually means here
Less than you would think. UK star ratings are voluntary, several of London’s best hotels are not in the scheme at all, and the phrase on a booking site is usually the hotel’s own description rather than anybody’s assessment. Treat it as a price bracket and judge the property.
It is worth knowing how far the systems disagree: by the hardest of them The Ritz is a four star hotel and a thirty room townhouse is a five. What five star actually means in London has who holds what and why the small houses win.
The Michelin Guide now rates hotels with Keys, which is a more useful signal than stars if you want an external opinion. Our Michelin restaurants guide covers how the dining side of that works.
Booking notes
Weekends are cheaper in the City, dearer in the West End. Plan around it and you can save a great deal.
Book direct and ask. London’s luxury hotels almost all hold back upgrades, late checkout and breakfast for direct bookers who ask at the time of booking. Worth knowing even if you are not staying: most hotel dining rooms will serve breakfast to non-residents. It costs nothing to ask and works more often than not.
Ask about the room, not the category. In the old buildings, two rooms in the same category can differ enormously. Ask for high floor, quiet side, or river view specifically.
Check what is under construction. Several central hotels have ongoing works nearby. A phone call answers it.
If you only need a room for part of the day rather than a night, day use hotels in London covers a category most visitors do not know exists. If privacy is the main requirement, discreet hotels in London is the more specific guide. And our main London guide covers what to do once you have dropped the bags.
The five grand hotels, and their dress codes
The doors differ far more than the star ratings suggest.
The Ritz requires a jacket and tie for afternoon tea and for lunch and dinner, and bans jeans. Breakfast in the same room is smart casual.
The Dorchester asks only that you avoid shorts and sportswear, and holds three Michelin stars at Alain Ducasse.
The Savoy has no formal dress code at all, but will not admit a football shirt.
The Langham opened in 1865 and has a pub, a cookery school and a health club you can join.
The Connaught has three venues against the Savoy’s nine, and the only Aman Spa in a London hotel.
Where to go next
The Ned is the one where a bedroom does not include the rooftop, and its ground floor restaurants are open to anyone.
Before the hotel, the area. Where to stay in London settles the question with one number most guides leave out: Transport for London caps a day’s travel at 8.90 pounds for Zone 1 and the identical 8.90 for Zones 1 to 2, so staying in Zone 2 costs nothing extra at all. It only rises at Zone 3, by a pound sixty a day.
The five star list covers the top of the market and day use hotels the rooms you can book by the hour rather than the night.
For the trip around the room: when to come, which is decided by daylight rather than rain, what to do with three days and the practical tips.
Questions we get asked
What is the best hotel in London?
There is no single answer any more, and that is the useful part. London has just had the largest wave of luxury openings in its history, so the grandest name is no longer automatically the best stay. Decide what you are here for first: a hotel chosen for its bar is a different building from one chosen for its location or its service, and this page is arranged that way rather than as a ranking.
What is the most expensive hotel in London?
The headline suites at the Mayfair and Knightsbridge grandes dames run into five figures a night, and which one tops the list changes with the season and the suite. It is a less useful question than it looks: the gap between the dearest room in London and a very good one is far wider than the gap in how well you will sleep. The interesting number is what a hotel charges at its cheapest, not its dearest.
Where should you stay in London?
Choose by what you are here for rather than by the name. The City is right for business and is cheaper at weekends. The West End is right for a short trip with a lot to see and is dearer at weekends. That single inversion is the most useful thing to know about London hotel pricing.
Is it cheaper to book a London hotel direct?
Usually, and more importantly it is the only way to have a conversation. Book direct and ask, because rate is rarely the only thing on the table: a better room in the same category, a later checkout or breakfast are all things a hotel can give away and an agency cannot.
What should you ask when booking a London hotel?
Ask about the room rather than the category. Two rooms with the same name in the same hotel can face a light well or a square, and the difference is the whole stay. Then ask what is under construction nearby, because London is always digging something up and nobody volunteers it.
When are London hotels cheapest?
It depends which London. The City empties at the weekend and drops its rates; the West End fills and raises them. If your trip is flexible, that inversion is worth more than any discount code.
Written by Robert J Wills, no. 16 in the guide.
Last checked 2 October 2026 against the venues' own published information. Nobody pays to appear here and we take no bookings.
