In October last year, permission was given by councillors in London to turn the iconic Trocadero building into a two-storey casino and restaurant. Situated on Coventry Street, it is perfectly situated between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. This meeting place and bustling hub has long been at the heart of London's entertainment scene.
Twelve weeks after coming on the market, the Surrey house used to portray the home of actress Maggie Smith's character, Lady Violet Crawley, found a buyer and recently closed along with several adjacent properties for nearly $9 million. Known as Dower House on the TV series, it was built around 1686.
The most arresting is a dramatic circular void carved into the ceiling, a spatial echo of St Paul's dome, translated from the sacred to the everyday. Below it, a monolithic espresso counter holds the room together, its weight and material language borrowed from Tate Modern's industrial character and the infrastructural logic of the riverbanks themselves.
A string quartet was playing in the hotel's lobby on our arrival, and the music drifted gently through to the Green Parlour as we took our tea. The tea room itself is unmilitary in style, with lots of soft greens and botanical art on the walls. For those who like their afternoon tea with bubbles, there's a choice of English sparkling wines at the Green Parlour.
Since it premiered in 2009, OVO has been seen by over seven million people in more than 40 countries, and it's back in London with a reimagined set design, reinvented music and new acrobatic acts. The show features 60 acrobats in incredible costumes bringing flying butterflies, juggling ants, leaping crickets and contorting spiders to life against a backdrop of giant flowers and a 19-metre climbing wall. Expect to see acts across Chinese poles, trampoline walls, slackwires and more, all set to a pumping Brazilian-inspired soundtrack.
By that point in my 50s, I struggled to maintain an erection naturally but it never diminished her enthusiasm in bed, or mine. For me, orgasming is just one small part of sex; with the right person, just being naked together is pure joy. Growing up with a single mother in the 1950s, I did not learn much about sex at home and I lost my virginity at university to the girl I ended up marrying.
All too often, hotel restaurants lack character both from a design and gastronomic perspective. Trying to please an international clientele with different tastes and expectations, and to make sure that all generations and food preferences are catered for, often leads to bland, identikit menus built around classic crowd-pleasers. I don't know why the management at the Cumberland decided to create Lírica, an unexpectedly good tapas restaurant in their hotel, but I'm pleased they did.
If you're an art deco architecture geek, you'll no doubt know all about Ibex House. The shimmering pale office building, which you'll find on the east side of the Minories in the City, is renowned for its long streamline moderne curves and mesmerising black-framed windows. The vast H-shaped structure is Grade II-listed and one of London's most remarkable surviving art deco buildings.
Chef Allléno, who acts as consulting chef, seems to have cracked the Michelin code: Restaurants he's affiliated with have a combined 17 stars from the tire company. And with Pavyllon London, he and chef Benjamin Ferra Y Castell aren't trying to reinvent the wheel. The dishes coming out of the kitchen are mostly fine-dining classics, but what's lacking in conceptual creativity is more than made up for in execution.
Every hotel on this list has been selected independently by our editors and written by a Condé Nast Traveller journalist who knows the destination and has stayed at that property. When choosing hotels, our editors consider both luxury properties and boutique and lesser-known boltholes that offer an authentic and insider experience of a destination. We're always looking for beautiful design, a great location and warm service - as well as serious sustainability credentials.
Wetherspoons has had its eye on a unit on the Strand since 2024, when it first applied for permission from Westminster City Council to open a pub on the site. Back then, the request was denied, with officials noting concerns about noise and disturbance for local residents. But the pub chain persisted. The decision was appealed, forcing the council to reconsider its initial rejection and provide clearer grounds as to why the space couldn't become a pub.
With precise technique, ingredient-led menus, and a cuisine rooted in British produce but driven by a modern approach to flavour and presentation, Brown has built a reputation as one of the UK's most exciting contemporary chefs.
As many of our dog-owning editors can attest (myself included) not all dog-friendly hotels in the UK are made equal. While some offer only a sole (and often squirrelled away) dog-friendly room for tiny pooches only, others treat four-legged family members of all sizes and breeds like VIP guests in their own right. Based on our own travels with furry friends in tow, the hotels
According to recent data, over 2 million people are typically out and about across the capital between 9pm and midnight, with around 1 million remaining active later into the night, in a testament to the city's enduring after-dark draw. A "rain check" no longer has to mean disappointment, though. Across the capital, nightlife has evolved into something far more flexible than a simple pub-to-club circuit. Dining, entertainment, gaming and culture increasingly blend into evenings that feel intentional rather than improvised.
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