From historic landmark stays to cool newcomers, here are the loveliest places to stay in Theatreland
Simon Upton
While it's better known for dawdling tourists, theatre luvvies, and designer shoppers, Covent Garden is also where you'll find some of the best hotels in London. In addition to glamorous addresses, staying within the heart of the West End has plenty of perks; it's a simple stroll back to your hotel after a late night theatre show, plus its easy to get in early at some of Covent Garden's hottest spots (Arome bakery, Monmouth Coffee and the Glossier boutique are famed for their queues). The area is most famous for it's open air market and car-free piazza which dates back to 1654 and once operated as the main fruit and vegetable market in London. The market is now home to a mix of vintage stalls and designer shops, with the London Transport Museum and the Royal Opera House located just nearby. But it's not just about the well-trodden tourist trail. Covent Garden has many secrets to discover, from hidden colourful laneways to an open-air swimming pool and secret gardens. Here are our pick for the best hotels in Covent Garden so you can wake up in the thick of it all.
In this article
Editor's picks of the best hotels in Covent Garden
- Best for couples: Nomad London
- Best for families: Rosewood London
- Best boutique: The Webster
The Savoy
Photo by Charley WardAl Banco café bar at The Webster
Photo by Alison Harvey Barretto
The Webster Hotel
A newcomer to Covent Garden, The Webster is a design-forward lifestyle hotel overlooking the leafy expanse of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Its 167 rooms pair earthy tones, dark timber furniture and tactile fabrics with peach velvet headboards and playful, retro-inspired details, while the personable service gives the hotel a far more intimate feel than its size suggests. Food and drink are where the hotel shines, from generous Italian cooking at subterranean restaurant Carmelina’s, to inventive cocktails at Italo Disco-inspired speakeasy bar, Carla’s List. There’s a lively social calendar too, with everything from live saxophone and Negroni evenings to run club and quiz nights. The location offers a welcome balance of city buzz and calm: Lincoln’s Inn Fields is just across the road, while Covent Garden’s theatres, the West End and the British Museum are all within easy walking distance. Dog owners will find a particularly warm welcome too. Alison Harvey Barretto
Price: Rooms from around £300 per night.
Simon Upton
Nomad London
The first Nomad outside the States stands proud in Covent Garden, in a palatial former magistrates’ court opposite the Royal Opera House. It came with some expectation – after all, the original put a whole New York City neighbourhood on the map, its Dirty Martini-fuelled bar an overnight sensation – but has hit the ground running. The centrepiece restaurant, in a luminous, almost neoclassical atrium draped with greenery, was booked up for weeks, a see-and-be-seen destination. There’s plenty of showmanship here, but it’s more Noël Coward than PT Barnum: vintage chandeliers, brass and crimson, mohair and damask, mural painters from the opera house involved in the decor. In the bedrooms, bathrooms nod to golden Twenties Art Deco and the main spaces to a sort of transatlantic connoisseur spirit, with big-brushed abstract expressionism propped up on the floor, Hopi kachina dolls beside the fireplace and a blend of Victoriana and art history on the walls (we perhaps have hotelier Andrew Zobler’s grandmother, who owned an antiques shop, to thank for this). The Library bar has shelves and shelves of books, though the prominent criminology section can’t match a tour of the adjacent new Bow Street Police Museum, birthplace of London’s first force, which has seen the Krays, Oscar Wilde and Emmeline Pankhurst pass through its cells. Shakers rattle like sidewinders in the tavern-esque Side Hustle, mixing up fancy American-style cocktails. This is a big-thinking but surprisingly intimate hotel that deserves a standing ovation. Sarah James
Price: Rooms from around £500 per night.
WILL-PRYCE
The Savoy
First opening over 135 years ago, this is London's first luxury hotel and still one of its most illustrious, welcoming in countless greats through its panelled revolving doors. Day-to-day, impeccably dressed types on business – lots of smart Americans, especially – and chic tourists waft about the space, soaking up the fabulousness from an Art Deco bar stool or chatting over scones in the marble-clad lobby. At Savoy Grill, you can sit in Grace Kelly’s favourite seat for fluffy cheese soufflé and Ramsay's famous beef wellington – out of 160-odd orders taken on an average evening, 140 will be for this dish – and enjoy bumps of caviar with a Martini chaser in the vampish Beaufort bar.
The hotel is currently renovating all bedrooms, with plans for completion by 2027. Great lengths have been taken to hang onto as many original features as possible, with 50 chandeliers precariously wrapped up and remaining in situ as builders worked below. The result is an opulent pearly-grey cocoon, featuring ivory silks, marble, and antique brass finishes, wrapped up in thick triple-height velvet curtains. It feels fresh, with glitzy touches like light-up brass vanity mirrors and colossal televisions demonstrating that for all the reverence paid to times gone by, the hotel has no intention of becoming a dusty relic. Later this year will see the opening of the River View suites, which have window seats framing the capital’s most beloved sights, with the London Eye so close you can almost touch it. Charley Ward
Price: Rooms from around £720 per night.
Nick Rochowski Photography
One Aldwych
One of London’s lesser-known gems despite being in the heart of theatreland, One Aldwych's elegant façade points onto The Strand at a peculiar, trippy angle – a Diagon Alley illusion within a grander, but no less layered, context. Inside, Fabled Studio recently gave the public spaces a fresh, Art Nouveau treatment worlds away from the gilded, velvety groans of the neighbourhood’s legendary institutions. The unusual shape of the building dictates the curvaceous interiors, moulding and furniture. Fresh and airy, rooms differ in shapes and sizes, abstract art and colour, but all are softly carpeted, with lacquered furniture, a multitude of textures and those thick, hefty curtains that seem consistently to frame the views from London’s top-rung hotels, no matter how contemporary their style. The food at One Aldwych is its edge, especially at Eneko, a moody, subterranean restaurant with Basque food and wine. Down here it feels New York-smooth with industrial, museum-like architecture warmed by deep-red accents, wooden floors and fabric chairs. Cocktail lovers are spoiled with seasonal creations or old classics in the striking Lobby Bar, as are sweet-toothed guests with a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-themed afternoon tea. And the breakfast in bed forgoes none of the taste, theatre or indeed choice offered if you were to eat it downstairs – an element that often falls through the marble cracks of haut hotels. Rosalyn Wikeley
Price: Rooms from around £650 per night.
Durston Saylor
Rosewood London
Though technically classed as Holborn, Rosewood London is within steps of Lincoln's Inn Fields and simply crossing the nearby Kingsway lands you in Covent Garden. It's also a hidden oasis in itself, where black cabs and Range Rovers pull in to reveal a private courtyard, a feature beloved by famous guests. It’s all very glamorous and grand, but also warm and welcoming to all ages. It’s British with a capital ’B’ too – think plenty of royal Britannia art and references throughout. Rooms are large by London standards, with even more spacious family rooms, signature suites and multi-room houses. It's possible to even take over entire wings of the property – The Grand Manor House Wing is so big it even has its own postcode. For supper, cosy up on one of the red banquettes at the Holborn Dining Room, where marmite sourdough and the signature steak pie are a must. If you’re staying on a Sunday, don’t miss the roast lunch with all the traditional trimmings. After dark, pop into the atmospheric and always bustling Scarfs Bar, named after and illustrated by British caricaturist Gerald Scarfe. Lauren Burvill
Price: Rooms from around £740 per night.
Lauren Burvill is a senior commerce writer at Condé Nast Traveller, where she manages and commissions hotel guides and reviews. Originally from Australia and now based in London, Lauren joined Condé Nast in 2018 and has since written for British Vogue, Glamour, GQ and Brides. Prior to Condé Nast, Lauren ... Read More