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 (GBP188.33), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
The first sign of the fun you’ll have at No.124 by Guesthouse, Brighton – an opening-in-July South Coast outpost from the Guesthouse group – is a disco ball glittering over the entryway. These three restyled Victorian and Georgian townhouses bring Brighton’s playful personality out, with games, cocktails and pizzas on the terrace and record players in rooms. The iconic West Pier opposite may be sombre, but there’s seaside jollity in the Palace Pier-inspired decor, free-snack-filled pantry and Brighton’s buzz on your doorstep.
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
A drink at the bar each (cocktail, glass of wine, something sparkling or a single house measure and mixer)
11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability; this can be guaranteed for a £50 charge.
Prices
Double rooms from £226.00, including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates don’t include breakfast (around £20 a person), but guests get to raid the pantry full of sweet and savoury treats (homemade cakes, ice-cream, crisps, sweets, fruit) for free.
Also
One of the Guest Rooms is adapted for accessibility with a roll-in shower, there's a lift and a ramp can be provided for the steps at the entrance.
Please note
While the hotel opens in October, you’ll have to wait a little longer to try the food at the Pearly Cow restaurant, which will open in September 2024.
At the hotel
Lounges, games room, winter garden, vinyl library, pantry and terrace, and free WiFi. In rooms: air-conditioning, record player and vinyl, Bluetooth Roberts Radio, smart TV with streaming services, coffee machine (with compostable pods) and tea-making kit, mini fridge with fresh milk and water, beach bags and towels to borrow, refillable water bottle, and Frette bathrobes and slippers.
Our favourite rooms
The Hideout Suite will be the one to sequester yourself away in, with its own pantry, filled with free goodies for you to raid, a stocked bar, bath tub to laze in and walk-in wardrobe. And you get extra seclusion with your own secret entrance along the seafront. Otherwise go alfresco in the Large Guest Room with a balcony. Whichever room you choose, you’ll find a record player with vinyl and eye-catching artwork made by locals; plus you’ll have the right to raid the hotel’s communal pantry for snacks and drinks whenever you fancy.
Spa
You’re at the beating heart of Brighton, but the BPM will lull in the multi-level FieldTrip Spa, hidden away in the hotel through a wildflower-flanked entrance (with more meadow-aping stretches within). In the cave-like space, treatments (massages, facials, tailored therapies for men and mums-to-be) use all-natural, sustainable products and are very soothing, but with the signature ‘Copper Cove Experience’, you and your knight (or dame) in shining hot-tub will soak, sort out your knots and sip English sparkling wine together.
Packing tips
Bring soft coverings for sitting on the pebbly beach if you don’t want to hire a deckchair, and Brighton’s where you can road-test your most out-there outfits, so pack for dressing to the max.
Also
The hotel will have beautifully outfitted rooms for meetings, private dining and events too.
Some rooms will take an extra bed or have a sofa-bed, and kids will enjoy this stay’s sense of fun, plus Brighton’s colourful and classic pastimes.
Best for
Juniors, tweens and teens.
Recommended rooms
The Guest Room – Sea View sleeps up to three and the Hideout Suite is roomy and private, with a sofa-bed to sleep up to two children. It's free for children aged three and under, £25 a night with breakfast for 4–11, £35 a night for 12–16 year olds.
Activities
They’ll love to be by the seaside (even if the beach is pebbly), with Palace Pier’s rides and arcades, watersports, basketball and volleyball courts. Ride Volks Railway, zipline, play laser tag, paint pottery, explore Booth Museum of Natural History and the Brighton Toy and Model Museum. And the shops along the Lanes have something for everyone.
Swimming pool
The hotel doesn’t have a pool, but more confident swimmers can splash about in the sea just across the road, and kids can use the Sea Lanes at certain times.
Meals
Trips to the pantry might spoil their appetite, but they’ll probably make room for pizza, and the Pearly Cow will have a simpler Pearly Calves menu for little ones.
Sustainability efforts
There are meadow-like plantings in the spa, plus eco-friendly products; plastic use is kept to a minimum; rooms have refillable toiletries and local suppliers are used for food and drink.
Slice of pizza in one hand, drink in the other, sun above and sea rolling on for miles: the terrace is exquisitely placed, with the iconic West Pier in view too. If you’d like to get a little closer, you can get a picnic for the beach on request.
Dress Code
Although the architecture says ‘pop up a parasol and cluck over how terribly sad it is that the Prince Consort passed away’ the hotel’s attitude is far more free, easy and all-accepting.
Hotel restaurant
The Pearly Cow restaurant’s fire-and-ice dining concept may sound like a work of fiction, but it will serve up good times, no drama. Rather, you’ll find just-caught shellfish chilling on ice and meaty lobster rolls at one end of the scale and flame-licked meats at the other (with chips you’ll scarf down like a determined seagull). Or a mix of both, as in signature eat: 45-day-aged beef-fillet tartare, with oyster cream and Exmoor caviar on charred sourdough. When the sun’s out, take to the terrace for wood-fired pizzas and Mediterranean small plates, and give in to grand old seaside tradition with afternoon tea. Occasionally there’s live music here too.
Hotel bar
Killer cocktails in the laidback bar or lounges get a competitive edge when you rummage around in the games room first, but – should things get too heated – there are various aspects of those calming sea blues, too.
Last orders
Breakfast will be from 7am to 10am, lunch and afternoon tea from noon to 3pm, dinner servings from 5.30pm to 9pm. Pizzas will be paddled out on the terrace from 11am onwards. The bar closes when everyone's gone to bed.
No.124 by Guesthouse, Brighton sits along the seafront, opposite the evocative remnants of the West Pier and close to pretty much everything, in its regal position along the King’s Road.
Planes
Of London’s airports, Gatwick is the closest, either a 40-minute drive or hour-long direct train ride away.
Trains
The city is well-connected by train, with frequent Thameslink services from stations across London, and links along the coast. The hotel is a 15-minute walk downhill from Brighton’s main train station – you may be fine to roll your wheelie case down, but the hotel offers a free pick-up service (and they’ll even bring you brollies if it’s raining).
Automobiles
Aside from the odd incline, Brighton is easily walkable (and very eco-minded, so you’re best sticking to two wheels over four). You’ll only need a car if you plan to explore the wider area and South Downs National Park – the closest charged parking is at Regency Square.
Worth getting out of bed for
No.124 must be lucky, because the hotel won the lottery of locations in Brighton. Walk outside and you’ll see the dizzying shaft of the i360 tower and its shiny doughnut that ferries visitors up and down it; and the skeleton of the West Pier. Cross the road and go down some steps and there they are: the (pebbly) beach and the sea. Amble along and you’ll find various attractions: live performers at Brighton Music Hall, the Upside Down House, cricket batting-cages, basketball and volleyball courts. Further along is the Palace Pier with classic fairground rides and arcades for time/money wasting; pirate-themed mini golf, a zipline, Volks Electric Railway, and the curious Brighton Flint Grotto. Further into the city, the Royal Pavilion shows that the Victorians did have a sense of humour (when it came to OTT decor anyways); the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery close by is an offshoot. Further along, the bustling Lanes are home to indie shops, the Theatre Royal and Komedia for a variety of live shows. Or have a more meditative time following the Undercliff Walk; watching starling murmurations over the West Pier when in season (October to March); or seeing what niche, vintage or foreign film is being screened at White Wall Cinema.
Local restaurants
Usually we’re right to be suspicious of restaurants whose locations seem to be too good, but the Salt Room (a few doors down from the hotel) is no tourist lure. From lobster butter on homemade sourdough to start, to skate with pork belly or thick steaks for two, to the seaside sweets for dessert, it’s a buoyant experience. The same group also own Burnt Orange (Med and Middle Eastern small plates), Tutto (modern Italian) and the Coal Shed (flame cooking) – all worth a visit in their own right.
For more sea-fare-ing Riddle & Finns have a pavilion just above the beach and traditional English’s have all the classics (plus Bloody Mary oyster shots). Palmito are big on flavour (the lamb with Nutbourne tomatoes and house ricotta is a must), and you’ll quickly fill a table with Halisco’s tacos and empanadas. Vegetarians and vegans, book early for Terre à Terre – it’s immensely popular, for good reason.
Local cafés
For brunches of crab and avo Benedict, ‘posh’ bacon butties with cheesy hash browns and poached-pear granola, washed down with passionfruit mimosas, head to Lucky Beach, or get Lost in the Lanes for herb and salmon rosti, French toast with lemon mascarpone and peach jam, and bottomless Bellinis on Sundays. In Kemptown Café Rust’s sourdough bread makes a fine base for Welsh rarebit, Benedicts and more; and for seafood snacking and rolls filled with lobster or crab, hit the Brighton Shellfish & Oyster Bar, a humble hut beside the beach.
Local bars
The bar at Smith stablemate the Artist Residence Brighton is delightfully laidback with a stash of board games and sea views. Add a bit of virtue to a sinful night out at Gung Ho!, which serves sustainable cocktails with foraged fixings. Dead Wax Social on the North Laine is serious both about the soundtrack and getting you good and buzzed – there’s a packed events calendar. Wine lovers, head for Valley Gardens where there’s both L’Atelier du Vin and the Wine Cellar.
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 va-va-voomed vintage hotel just a road crossing from the South Coast and unpacked their rainbow-flag beach towels and finds from indie shops, a full account of their paddling and partying break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside No.124 by Guesthouse, Brighton…
The three townhouses of No.124 by Guesthouse, Brighton date back to the Victorian and Georgian eras, but here you’ll find more of the lavish gallivanting of the Prince of Wales who built the Asian-inspired Royal Pavilion down the road, than the unamused queen who found it all a bit ostentatious. The hotel dazzles from the start with a glitter ball over the entrance, and it’s all fun and games from there. Quite literally with a games room to raid and a pantry full of local and homemade treats to pick at as you fancy: often, that’ll be. Dining with an ice-and-fire concept gauges the temperatures of guests’ wants (from fire-seared steaks to chilled seafood), and rooms have sweet touches: record players and a library of vinyl to pick from, little beach huts containing coffee and tea kit. Whether you’re here to kick off your night with cocktails and head off into the dead-centre setting, or hit the spa then enjoy a pizza on the terrace as the sun sets behind the West Pier, you’re in for a right royal knees-up.
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