If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP416.67), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Opulence is no stranger to West London’s Chelsea, and luxury hotel At Sloane leans into it with 30 romantic rooms, a rooftop restaurant set for King’s Road royalty and a speakeasy-style bar for the ages. Occupying a Victorian townhouse built in 1888 by Liberty & Co architect, Edwin Thomas Hall, the design has been lovingly tweaked by François-Joseph Graf into a stylish English-French fusion. Every corner is carefully considered: mirrors conceal hidden doors, bright hues on the sixth-floor restaurant contrast with rich reds in the basement bar, and black-and-white portraits line the stairwells – decadence is in the details after all.
Noon, check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request, and subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £500.00, including tax at 20 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional service charge of 5% per booking on check-out.
More details
Rates don’t include breakfast, but Continental and à la carte options are available at the rooftop restaurant.
Also
One of the rooms and all the communal areas (including the bar and restaurant) are accessible, but some of the smaller corridors can be a little restrictive for wheelchair-users. There are also stairs up to the main entrance, but staff will be happy to assist guests with limited mobility through the back entrance, or set-up a ramp for ease.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: iPad, smart TV, tea-making kit, fully stocked minibar, and Noble Isle bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Immaculately designed by famed French designer François-Joseph Graf, each of the hotel’s 30 rooms have a refined sense of symmetry that juxtaposes playful accents, hidden entrances and bright, bespoke textiles. Spaces are couple-oriented, with black-and-white photos of storied duos, ‘love’ lighting settings, bath tubs pour deux, and minibars that include all the classics (if Clase Azul tequila is your go-to, that is), plus decks of Pillow Talk cards. But for something that’ll really set the tone, we’d suggest the sprawling Sloane Suite, that’s primed with a bathside champagne bucket, silky-soft king-size bed, separate living room, and handmade cashmere curtains that make for a truly seductive stay.
Packing tips
Revise with a few episodes of Made in Chelsea before you start packing, but anything you'd spot at London Fashion Week should blend in best with West London’s upmarket crowd.
Ask for the restaurant’s most secluded table and servers will guide you down a narrow hallway into a private, chapel-like alcove that’s set for four (or two, if you’d rather dine à deux).
Dress Code
Think former Sloane Ranger Princess Diana (both athleisure and evening wear), and you’ll be right on the mark.
Hotel restaurant
Little else in London is as coveted as a view-blessed roof terrace – and At Sloane’s sixth-floor restaurant has outdone itself with a particularly arresting one, with panoramas set to impress both outside and in. But, it’s the 300 Chinese vases, hand-chosen by Graf himself, and walls lined with antique mirrors that really steal the scene – and that’s all before the first course has even arrived. Menus are secret, so you won’t know exactly what’s coming until seated, but expect varied twists on classic French fare (the spicy lobster pasta is a rumoured favourite) and refined wine pairings.
Hotel bar
Downstairs, a speakeasy-inspired bar is dressed in deep reds and craft cocktails are served to dimly-lit tables, which are bordered by reupholstered theatre seats and latticed screens. For even more privacy, ask for one of the secluded booths, set down a hallway and hidden behind handmade curtains.
Last orders
Breakfast is served between 7am and noon; lunch then runs until 6pm, and dinner is from 6pm to 10pm.
Room service
Dishes can be delivered to your door during restaurant opening hours.
At Sloane takes its name from neighbouring Sloane Square, Chelsea’s storied shopping spot in the heart of West London.
Planes
You can fly into any of London’s international airports, but Heathrow has the fastest routes into the city; hop in a taxi and you’ll be at the hotel in under an hour (as long as the traffic treats you well). Otherwise, the Heathrow Express takes passengers to Paddington in under 15 minutes; from there take London Underground’s Circle Line for 10 minutes and jump off at Sloane Square. Hotel staff are also happy to arrange private transfers from any of the city’s airports.
Trains
Getting around London is made easier given that the hotel sits less than a minute’s walk from Sloane Square Underground Station, which has frequent District and Circle line tubes between South Kensington and Victoria.
Automobiles
Ditch the wheels and stick to the city’s public-transport system and taxis.
Worth getting out of bed for
At Sloane feels more home than hotel, so it’s best to make sure you’re living like a local, and there’s no better place to start than the King’s Road. Set a few minutes from the hotel, this 17th-century street teems with Chelsea’s best-dressed residents (and their dogs) wandering between glossy shops and independent cafés. And while you’re there, be sure to stroll through Duke of York Square – which has a food market every Saturday – and down Pavilion Road, where artisanal bakeries and locally loved restaurants reside in a mews of redbrick buildings. The Saatchi Gallery sits nearby and has a host of ever-changing contemporary art exhibitions, and during the warmer months the Chelsea Physic Gardens’ four acres bloom with over 4,500 species of edible and medicinal plants.
If the shopaholics are still looking for more, Harrods is set to keep you entertained with seven floors of fancy threads in nearby Knightsbridge. Crowds can tend to take over along this particular stretch of the Brompton Road, so for those seeking something a little more peaceful, Hyde Park is a 15-minute walk away – the Serpentine Galleries are also worth marvelling at while you’re there, and impressive performances are often happening in the adjacent Royal Albert Hall. Museums are in abundance in London, and South Kensington’s Cromwell and Exhibition roads house some of the best: the Victoria & Albert Museum has one of the world’s largest collection of decorative arts, the Natural History Museum impresses with over 80-million Earth-related artefacts, and the Science Museum has immersive exhibitions year-round.
Local restaurants
Set a 10-minute walk from the hotel, Chinese-restaurant Hunan does things differently. Once you arrive, servers will ask if there’s anything you don’t eat and how much spice you can handle; they’ll then bring an array of tapas-sized sharing plates that’ve been expertly sautéed, stir-fried and steamed behind the scenes by owner and head chef, Mr Peng (very few people are privy to his first name, so we shan’t divulge). At Michelin-awarded Muse by Tom Aikens, seasonal tasting menus are inspired by the chef’s British upbringing and come accompanied by short origin stories. Stick with the quintessentially English ambience and head to the Orange – a four-floor gastropub, and former brewery, along Pimlico Street.
Local cafés
Chelsea has cafés aplenty, and the folks at Hagen – where beans are homebrewed and poured in a Scandi setting – are on hand to ensure your caffeine fix is sorted in style. On Pavilion Road, the Roasting Party have refined a lengthy list of blends that suffice every sippers’ preference.
Local bars
A trip to London wouldn’t be complete without a couple of pints at the pub, and you’ll find them in abundance wherever you roam; but for something a little more elegant, stop by Wild Corner, which has over 150 bottles of sommelier-selected wines. Another impressive collection of spirits resides at Mezcalito, which serves spicy margs alfresco (heaters will keep you cosy during winter) and tacos every Tuesday.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this sultry stay in West London and unpacked their Taschen books and affluent attire, a full account of their bijou break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside At Sloane in Chelsea…
Subtly set amid a row of residential redbrick homes in West London’s coveted Chelsea neighbourhood, luxury hideaway At Sloane is doing things a little differently to most. Nothing indicates that 1 Sloane Gardens is a hotel, except the smiley doorman who quickly ushers guests into a grand library that feels more like a space in a soigné Parisian home than anything else. This is all intentional, of course – it’s exactly how designers François-Joseph Graf and Jean-Louis Costes wanted things to feel here. Interiors immaculately blend British opulence with a signature French flair, bringing playful touches (minibars with Pillow Talk card games, Orient Express-inspired furnishings and dreamy freestanding bath tubs hidden behind secret doors) into the otherwise meticulous symmetry of each rarefied room. In the basement, a moody speakeasy-style bar serves classic cocktails to merlot-toned booths; and up on the sixth floor, the French restaurant draws inspiration from James McNeill Whistler and Thomas Jeckyll’s 19th-century Peacock Room. And if you can bear to part with your ensconced spot, Sloane Square and the King’s Road are a scenic stroll away.
