By Steve McKenna
The Londoner.
THE LONDONER
Billing itself as the "world's first super-boutique hotel", this five-star affair has helped glam up Leicester Square, the setting for many a red-carpet movie premiere (and the subject of an ongoing multi-million dollar revamp). Plush fabrics, Toto toilets and light-studded vanity mirrors - the kind you'd find in actors' dressing rooms - give the 350 rooms and suites film-star appeal. Theatrical art decorates guests-only lounges (where complimentary soft drinks and antipasti are served) and public areas like The Stage, a lobby-level champagne bar, and Whitcomb's, a casual-chic French Mediterranean restaurant. There's an 8th-floor Japanese-style izakaya with heated terraces, while basement levels hide high-tech meeting rooms, plus The Retreat, a sleek wellness haven with a gym, pool, superfood clinic and spa treatments. Rooms from £485 ($A905). See thelondoner.com
SELINA CAMDEN
A funky new base for enjoying Camden's eclectic markets and music scene, this hostel-hotel hybrid faces the Roundhouse (one of London's best live gig venues) and offers everything from dorm bunks and ship-cabin-sized quarters to family rooms and a loft-style suite with a terrace. Selina has Insta-friendly, luxuriantly-adorned co-working spaces, a cinema room, and street-level vegan-vegetarian restaurant Powerplant, and embraces the Camden vibe with live DJs, jazz nights and open-mic events. As a bonus, you're 10 minutes on foot from leafy, chi-chi Primrose Hill, which boasts one of the best views over London. Private rooms from £76 ($A142). See selina.com/uk/camden
THE STRATFORD
A javelin's throw from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (and a huge Westfield mall), The Stratford occupies an eye-catching 42-storey skyscraper in a fast-developing east London neighbourhood that is just seven minutes from King's Cross-St Pancras on the high-speed train. Interior designers Space Copenhagen - the Danish studio behind the original Noma - have added natural timbers and stone to the hotel's 145 rooms and suites, and hygge-friendly vibes to the triple-height lobby, which has an enclosed log fire, and neighbours the Mezzanine lounge-bar and all-day Australasian-Asian-inspired eatery Kitchen E20. There's farm-to-table dining at seventh-floor restaurant, Allegra. Crowning The Stratford is a double-cantilevered tower with 248 apartments for long and short-term lets, and communal "sky gardens" (the higher you go the more staggering the London panoramas). Rooms from £120 ($A224). See thestratford.com
KINGSLAND LOCKE
This plant-peppered apartment-hotel is a chilled-out cocoon amid the multicultural throng of Dalston, one of London's liveliest, trend-setting districts. Choose from 124 apartments (19-37square metres), with fully-equipped kitchens, low-slung beds, yoga mats and quirkily-scented Kinsey Apothecary toiletries (think: Himalayan Hibiscus and Salted Caramel Vanilla). By day, locals and guests mingle over flat whites and pastries at the ground-floor Shaman cafe and workspace, and later at the on-site microbrewery, gin distillery (Jim and Tonic) and fusion restaurant, which conjures contemporary takes on the kebabs long-served at Dalston's classic Turkish eateries. Studios from £59 ($A110). See lockeliving.com/en/london/kingsland-locke
NOMAD LONDON
The first NoMad outside the US, this swanky 91-room hotel has transformed the 19th-century Bow Street Magistrates' Court and Police Station in Covent Garden. The old courtyard - where the accused would arrive - has been converted into a gorgeous greenhouse-style atrium-restaurant, while one of the wood-panelled courts now hosts an opulent events space. Almost 3000 books (including yarns on crime and punishment) furnish the elegant, leather-and-velvet-rich Library, while the Side Hustle pub flaunts Americana and Mexican-influenced cuisine and cocktails. Adjoining the hotel, a new museum recalls 250 years of London's crime-fighting, preserving cells that once detained the Kray twins, the Suffragettes and Oscar Wilde. Rooms from £446 ($A831). See thenomadhotel.com/london
PAN PACIFIC LONDON
Europe's first Pan Pacific has brought a touch of the Far East to London's historic, but increasingly shiny Square Mile, with 237 luxurious, generously-sized rooms (they start at 37 square metres), and dining options tapping into the chain's Singaporean heritage. Expect champagne-powered cocktails at Ginger Lily, dishes like wok fry chilli mud crab at Straits Kitchen and an Asian twist on afternoon tea, with bao, dim sum and choux, at the Orchid Lounge. The hotel's fourth-floor wellness zone has an 18.5 metre infinity pool that overlooks the buzz of Bishopsgate Plaza, a new public square close to Liverpool Street station. Rooms from £325 ($A606). See
Steve McKenna was a guest of the hotels and Visit Britain
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