While central, some London visitors tend to skip Fitzrovia’s hurried streets that are anchored by an especially bustling stretch of Oxford Street, in favor of quieter boroughs. But let’s not forget that this neighborhood also used to be the bohemian haunt of luminaries like George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. The London Edition—one of three Edition properties in the world with more on the way—has bridged the gap between the neighborhood’s up-and-coming with its understatedly cool past.
Hotelier Ian Schrager, renowned as the impresario who launched the boutique hotel trend, is the man behind the brand. Taking over a gorgeous Georgian building that offers a grand brick façade, a surplus of marble and overwrought crown moldings, Schrager remade the former Berners Street Hotel into one of the city’s swankiest new addresses. Which is fitting, since it is just down the road from a previous Schrager project, the Sanderson, which opened back in 1998.
Edition’s lobby is all British imperial grandeur, though with some of the more staid elements transformed into a space where work and play mingle. That means a good Wi-Fi signal with plenty of seating areas to hash deals over a cup of tea, and at the same time a pool table right inside the front door where people are almost always playing. The space also offers cozy canoodling corners around a fireplace with pink marble pillars, and a well-stocked bar right on the way to the reception desks. These amenities are all under a mirrored elliptical orb suspended from the ceiling, making it easier to check out the other lobby interlopers more discreetly. The design concept comes courtesy of internationally acclaimed interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg.
Just off the lobby is the hotel’s main restaurant Berners Tavern, which is overseen by Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton. The dining room ambiance is Victorian ballroom-meets-contemporary-social-club, with walls covered in hand-curated photographs, some of the most elaborate crown molding you will ever see, a floor-to-ceiling backlit bar that draws guests in like moths to a flame, and custom-designed birdcage-like bronze chandeliers inspired by Grand Central Terminal in New York City.
Schrager likes to play with hidden spaces as well, so guests in the know can make a reservation for drinks at the Punch Room, a little gem of a bar just off the back of the main lobby. The feel here is of an updated gentlemen’s club with dark oak paneling, a sexy fireplace, low leather banquettes and angular brown leather armchairs that invite you to spend the entire evening enjoying shared cocktail bowls…that is, if you and your party can all decide on the same drink. Don't worry, there are also individual cocktails. The other (sort of) secret space? The Basement nightclub, which only gets going long after dark, but has been known to host some big names for unannounced last-minute jam sessions.
Upstairs, the hotel has just 173 rooms and suites. In a departure from the public spaces’ high ceilings and classic architectural accents, the rooms are much more intimate, neutral spaces. Walls and floors are paneled in either dark walnut wood or light oak. Closets are hidden behind still more panels, while the bathrooms are on the small side with just showers and a single vanity, but laid out efficiently enough so they never feel cramped. They all come stocked with the brand’s signature spicily-fragranced Edition bath products.
The beds are framed by pendant globe lamps and dressed simply in all-white linens, but with faux-fur throws. The entire effect is like spending an evening in Burt Reynolds’ ‘70’s lake cabin. In a really good way.
London’s hotel scene is one of the world’s most dynamic, with seemingly new openings almost every day. And the London Edition in its historical landmark building, is already on its way to becoming a contemporary landmark as well.
