Hope Street Hotel
Liverpool, United Kingdom[view map]
Local restaurants
There are three great restaurants very close to the hotel. London Carriage Works, which is within Hope Street Hotel itself (+44 (0)151 705 2222), offers a fancy and fabulous fine dining menu as well as a brasserie selection – which is still pretty fancy and fabulous. The Lower Place, in the nearby Philharmonic Hall, shares some of the London Carriage Works' excellent cooking staff – and it shows. 60 Hope Street (+44 (0)151 707 6060) has an impressive dining room upstairs and a cosier café on the ground floor. Valparaiso on Hardman Street (+44 (0)151 708 6036) is a great Chilean restaurant, serving excellent seafood including delicious paella.
Local bars
Co-owned by electro band Ladytron, Korova on Fleet Street (+44 (0)151 709 7097) is a funky, music-focused venue that combines playful bar, canteen-style restaurant and buzzing club with panache. It’s a good place to catch promising young acts play live.
Local cafes
A smart, great‑value basement bistro beneath the theatre of the same name, Everyman Bistro has a daily changing menu of Francophile tarts, flans and quiches (+44 (0)151 708 9545).
Nightlife
While Caribbean‑themed Alma De Cuba on Seel Street (+44 (0)151 709 7097) attracts the footballers' wives and popstrels of Liverpool, it is also a great cocktail bar in a particularly beautiful building – a huge 18th-century church with stained glass windows and altar intact. The Living Room (+44 (0)151 236 1999) is another decidedly decadent bar with lots of beautiful people to see and be seen by.
Worth getting out of bed for
Visit the Everyman Liverpool and/or Liverpool Playhouse theatres, both of which are leading a resurgence of fine drama in the city (www.everymanplayhouse.com); the hotel can check ticket availability for you.
The beautiful 19th-century Albert Dock now houses Tate Liverpool as well as the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Beatles Story (which is a lot of fun) and a couple of decent cafés. Croxteth Hall and Country Park (+44 (0)151 233 6910) has a walled garden and a Victorian farmyard (with some very sweet pigs) as well as various activities on offer, including horse riding.
Diary
February Chinese New Year is enthusiastically celebrated in the city’s Chinatown. March LEAP, a diverse festival of contemporary dance showcasing the talents of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (www.merseysidedance.co.uk/leap.html). April The Grand National meeting at nearby Aintree Racecourse (www.aintree.co.uk). July The Liverpool Comedy Festival. August The massive Mathew Street Music Festival boasts a strange but sometimes wonderful musical line-up: old favourites jostle alongside up-and-comers, pop waifs and cover bands (www.mathewstreetfestival.com). International Beatles Week attracts more than 200 bands from around the world to play tribute to the city’s favourite sons, with markets and exhibitions dedicated to the famous foursome (www.cavern-liverpool.co.uk/beatleweek).