City edition
Where to stay in London
London is a serviced-apartment city more than a hotel one, and the Collection follows that. Every entry ends in the address’s own contact, at the address’s own price.
Cheval Three Quays
City of London, on the Thames at Tower Hill
Serviced apartments
159 apartments
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
Cheval Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge, around Cheval Place
Serviced apartments across several period buildings
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
Native Mayfair
Mayfair, Lees Place on the Grosvenor Estate
Aparthotel
11 apartments
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
No.5 Maddox Street
Mayfair, Maddox Street off Regent Street
Serviced apartments
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
Cheval Gloucester Park
Ashburn Place, Kensington SW7
Serviced apartments
98 apartments, one to three bedrooms, plus three five-bedroom penthouses
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
45 Park Lane
Park Lane, Mayfair, facing Hyde Park
Hotel built as a private residence
45 rooms and suites, 36 to 170 m² (388 to 1,829 sq ft)
The nightly rate is not published; ask the address.
Staying in London
London is not one city, it is a run of villages that grew into each other, and the distance between two of them is measured in minutes on the Underground rather than in miles. Choose the village first. The postcode tells you more about your stay than the building does.
It is also the city where the serviced apartment is normal rather than exotic: whole buildings are built for stays of a week to a year, with a front desk, a lift and a kitchen, and they are what a family or a working stay should be looking at. Most of them price better by the month than by the night, and most of them will not tell you that until you ask.
Where to sleep, and what it means
- Mayfair, W1
- Between Hyde Park and Regent Street. Quiet Georgian streets, the galleries, the old money. Where a short business stay wants to be, and the walk to a green park is two minutes.
- Knightsbridge, SW1 and SW7
- The museums, the department stores, the garden squares. Large flats in period buildings, and the address most long family stays choose.
- The City, EC3
- The financial square mile. Busy from seven to seven, genuinely quiet at the weekend, and the closest you can sleep to the Thames and the Tower. Best value of the central postcodes for that reason.
- Marylebone and Fitzrovia, W1
- One street back from the noise. A high street that still has butchers on it, and the easiest central quarter to live in rather than visit.
What a visitor asks first
- Does a month cost less per night than a week?
- In London, usually yes, and often materially so — a serviced apartment building would rather hold one guest for thirty nights than turn the flat over four times. The monthly rate is almost never published. Ask the address for it directly; that is the single most useful question in this city.
- How far is far?
- Anything inside Zone 1 is twenty minutes from anything else inside Zone 1. Zone 2 adds ten. Ask for the nearest station and the walk to it in minutes, not for the distance, because the walk is what you will actually do twice a day in the rain.
- Which airport for a long-haul arrival?
- Heathrow, and the Elizabeth line or the Express from Paddington rather than a car at five in the evening. Gatwick is thirty minutes of train from Victoria and fine. City Airport is the one to ask for if you are staying in the City.
The next city, before anyone else
The Letter is one city an issue and a handful of addresses, with the direct contact for each. It is free, it is the only thing we ask of a reader, and it costs you nothing on the stay you book afterwards.
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