London, United Kingdom

The Kensington Hotel London

Price per night from$308.63

Price information

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 (GBP242.67), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Regal and ravishing

Setting

Sumptuous South Ken

Situated in a beautiful townhouse just off London’s Old Brompton Road, The Kensington Hotel London is a relaxing spot in which to escape the bustle of SW7’s museum land. Style is taken incredibly seriously here, and everything from its handpicked furniture to the light installations that dominate its communal areas ticks the right fashion-magazine boxes. And it’s incredibly spacious – even the smallest rooms feel positively suite-like.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A room upgrade to the next category (subject to availability), early check-in and late check-out, and a drink each in the K Bar; GoldSmiths will also get two free tickets to a current Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition

Facilities

Photos The Kensington Hotel London facilities

Need to know

Rooms

150, including 24 suites.

Check–Out

Noon, though this is flexible subject to availability; earliest check-in, 2pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £291.20, including tax at 20 per cent.

More details

Continental breakfast is an additional £15 a person.

Also

The huge brass doors in K Bar have been taken from Dublin’s General Post Office, scene of the infamous 1916 Easter Rising. Keep an eye out for bullet holes.

At the hotel

Gym, CD/DVD library, free WiFi, laundry service, valet parking. In rooms: flatscreen TVs, minibar, air-conditioning, free bottled water, CD/DVD players on request, Aromatherapy Associates toiletries, Nespresso machines in some rooms.

Our favourite rooms

We love Asian-inspired Luxury Studio Suite 115, mainly for its uplifting yellow, purple and blue colour scheme. It comes with gold-coloured hardwood floors, light-flooding windows and an enormous bathroom with double sinks and a TV built into the end of the bath. We also like the huge Corner Suite 123, with its green velvet chairs and access to a terrace, and high-ceilinged Standard Room 121, which comes with bold red flower-patterned curtains and matching satin pillows.

Packing tips

You’ll need to pack some serious party clothes for the private members' club Ramusake downstairs – the royal-rubbing Boujis crowd around the corner regularly make this their second (or third) home.

Pet‐friendly

Small dogs can stay in all rooms for a £25 cleaning fee a room, each stay. See more pet-friendly hotels in London.

Children

Kids are welcome. Tents can be added to rooms, and baby cots are provided free of charge. Extra beds for under-16s are £35 a night, babysitting is available from £10.50 an hour (plus £25 booking fee) and Town House restaurant has a kids menu.

Overview

This colourful London stay has plenty to make parents' stays a bit easier. A kids' concierge with a finger on the pulse of London's best kids' activities, and very special extras make this a winning family stay.

Best for

Younger kids are catered for, but tweens and teens will get the most out of a stay here.

Recommended rooms

Baby cots (free) and extra beds (£35 a bed, each night) can be added to Deluxe category rooms and higher. Deluxe Family Rooms sleep up to four, and the hotel has a range of Deluxe and Superior rooms, and suites, which interconnect.

Activities

Colouring books or storybooks (depending on the child's age) are handed out at arrival. There's a library of U-rated DVDs and children's magazines, and plenty of little surprises, including free gifts, hot chocolate and fruit. For an extra charge, kids can 'glamp' in a tent or teepee in their parents' room, with a milk-filled thermos, snacks, a teddy and a hurricane nighlight to make the experience a little more authentic. 

Meals

If dining with an adult in the Town House restaurant before 7pm, under 5s get a free meal from the children's menu. High chairs are available on request.

Babysitting

With 24 hours' notice, the hotel can arrange a babysitter.

No need to pack

For very little ones, there's a baby kit with cleaning wipes and Johnson & Johnson soap, so you won't have to bring the full baby-care arsenal. Special children's bath products are offered too.

Food and Drink

Photos The Kensington Hotel London food and drink

Top Table

Try to secure one of the long, leather banquettes for genuine comfort eating.

Dress Code

Comfortable, low-level glamour.

Hotel restaurant

Town House restaurant is where chef and Hix-alumnus Steve Gibbs serves up wonderful, seasonal English cuisine – peppered sirloin steak, roasted lemon-and-thyme chicken, and rhubarb and apple crumble – to a food-savvy crowd. The hand-picked wine list makes for intriguing reading too. Diners sit on green leather chairs at round wooden tables, and are free to move from the dining room into the bar whenever they feel. The atmosphere is casual.

Hotel bar

K Bar has the air of a gentlemen's club, with oak-panelled walls and inviting sofas upholstered in racing green and royal blue. The bar's softly lit with chandeliers and a polished-brass bar display and doors add warmth. K Bar has a wonderful step-back-in-time feel. Sink back into one of the comfy dark-purple couches and await a classic or contemporary cocktail shaken up behind the leather-clad bar by an award-winning mixologist. We recommend the King of Queen's Gate, with Jameson Select Reserve whiskey, King’s Ginger Liqueur, lemon, rose syrup and orange marmalade.

Last orders

Town House restaurant stops taking orders at 10pm; K Bar carries on serving till 11pm.

Room service

Sandwiches, burgers, salads and other light dishes – and, of course, drinks – are available 24 hours a day.

Location

Photos The Kensington Hotel London location
Address
The Kensington Hotel London
109-113 Queen's Gate
London
SW7 5LR
United Kingdom

Planes

The Kensington Hotel is 15 miles from London Heathrow.

Trains

The nearest Tube station is South Kensington, on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines. The hotel is also within five miles of Paddington, Victoria and Waterloo, from where you can catch trains all over the country.

Automobiles

From Heathrow, follow the M4 into central London and look out for the Natural History Museum to turn right onto Queensbury Place.

Worth getting out of bed for

Here in South Kensington, you're close to the Royal Albert Hall, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the wonderful V&A, as well as Kensington Palace and Hyde Park (where you can also visit the Serpentine Galleries). There's swanky shopping galore, too, with Knightsbridge and Kensington High Street nearby – so you can get Harrods ticked off your shopping-to-do list. It's only a short Tube ride into the centre of London, if you want to catch a show in the West End or explore Covent Garden's boutiques and markets.

Local restaurants

South Ken's Bumpkin serves a hearty brunch and their indoor barbecue oven, nicknamed 'Bertha', cooks a mean 'firebread'. A 10-minute walk from the hotel, Obicà's mozzarella bar will satiate even the most ardent cheese enthusiast, and close by you'll find Daphne's, which serves authentic Italian fare – there's a separate pasta and meat course – alongside a decadent black-truffle-infused set menu, and Patara is a trendy Thai joint.

Local cafés

Muriel's Kitchen is a cosy family-friendly lunching spot on Pelham Street. Dishes such as slow- and low-cooked spicy pork and chilli-pepper goulash, and creamy chicken and apricot curry feature on the moreish menu.

Local bars

The Admiral Codrington is a cosy boozer with velvet banquettes, private booths and an excellent burger on the food menu.

Reviews

Photos The Kensington Hotel London reviews

Anonymous review

Reviewed by Howard Bernstein

City hotel bars can be full of lonely, wandering travellers – but they’re also ripe with possibility. Think Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation. Mrs Smith and I are relaxing in the Kensington Hotel’s amber-hued lounge, eyeballing a chandelier like a belly dancer’s belt, when I have my own Bill Murray moment. Instead of spying Scarlett Johansson lingering longingly, proffering peanuts and parties, I notice Erin O’Connor: she’s sitting right behind my beloved.

If I squeeze my left eye shut a little, and squint, I can transpose my lady’s head onto Erin’s limbs. Alternatively, if I wiggle my right eyeball, I can shimmy Erin’s sleekly coiffed head onto Mrs Smith’s body. It’s a visual bull’s-eye, either way. It’s also earned my unstinting loyalty to this hotel – going for cocktails and spotting someone Karl Lagerfeld describes as ‘one of the best models in the world’ is enough to keep me coming back.

Mrs Smith scrutinises me suspiciously. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she hisses. ‘Your eyes are twitching!’ Deciding this is no time for subterfuge, I alert her to the presence of our model neighbour. She’s instantly enthralled. Minutes later, we’re sitting with Erin on a low-slung sofa, discussing politics over ghostly martinis and finger-thin rosemary grissini.

To the right of our VIP, a pair of sulky temptresses converse over dinner (Mrs Smith and I are booked in for food too, and the wafts from their plates are highly encouraging). To our left, an elderly German couple with gravity-defying hairdos and bandbox-neat attire are talking art, casting the occasional smile our way. It’s remarkably relaxed, more than a bit refined, and utterly cosy.

Sadly, our gazelle-like companion has a former engagement to attend, and leaves us basking in her afterglow. We’re more than happy à deux though, and enjoying the freedom to critique our surroundings. Check-in has made a good impression on me: warm welcome, citrus-scented towels, and instant upgrade to a Corner Studio Suite. My lady was also impressed by the lobby, with its red marble counter and Jan Pienkowski-style wall murals of trees. I rather fancy the light that mushrooms from the ceiling like a scrunch of giant bubble wrap.

Mrs Smith stretches out an impeccably manicured hand, pinches a hickory-smoked almond from the silver dish in front of us, and declares, through a nut crunch: ‘What I love about the Kensington is that it doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It’s a hotel, plain and simple, and a very good one at that. You can tell that from the reception: it’s not a secret bunker, or a robot-staffed techno den. It’s a hotel reception. Staff wear uniforms. None of this gritty urban twaddle, where a hotel needs sulky service and garbage bags for sheets, in order to be considered cutting-edge.’

I murmur in absent-minded agreement (disregarding the fact that we have never, to my knowledge, slept on garbage bags, or been checked-in by robots), and nibble companionably on lemon- and chilli-spiked popcorn.

My lady continues to wax lyrical. We both praise the drawing room, styled like an opulent clubhouse, with carefully curated artworks, heavy drapes and flickering fires. I’m already imagining afternoon tea here, when my stomach interrupts with a growl.

Luckily, it’s dinner time, so Mrs Smith and I abandon our snug corner for a prime spot in the masculine Aubrey restaurant, styled with toffee-brown wood panelling and chunky green leather banquettes (Murray could have filmed his Tokyo whisky ad here). We sit at the back, right by the window, overlooking the elegant chalk-white townhouses.

Following a ravishing meal – plump scallops with pea shoots and broad beans in a tomato broth, followed by a melting duck confit with peppery potato hash – we stagger back to our boudoir. Our glitzy gold suite ticks the boutique boxes: desirable mod cons (giant TV, iPod dock), and make-yourself-at-home luxury. Candy-coloured furnishings – lime-green chairs, violet lampshade, cherry-drop-red antique chair in the bathroom – have Mrs Smith reconsidering the complexion of our Stateside pad.

The outside of our suite is equally impressive: a balcony with views of Queen’s Gate, just blocks from Hyde Park (scene of my morning jog). Anyone familiar with suave South Kensington will know that’s as peaceful a respite from central London as you could find, and boasts the lion’s share of the city’s cultural Titans: the V&A and the Natural History Museum, with the Royal Albert Hall, Harrods, Christie’s, and the Serpentine Gallery within easy reach.

Tonight though, we’re staying put. As Mrs Smith sinks into a plush velvet armchair, and considers a bottle of room service red, I retreat to the bathroom, with a good old-fashioned soak in mind. Having previously encountered luxury hotels in Europe with showers the size of shoe closets, this palatial preening area has me purring (there’s even a TV above the bath, for chrissake). And let me tell you something: warm towel rack equals instant bliss. Rainy London days pose no threat, when there’s a steaming bath and a toasty towel beckoning in your hotel room.

The next morning, post-run, I make my final discovery: the fitness facilities. The Kensington Hotel has a full gym, with equipment that outshines most health clubs in New York. I’ve discovered the perfect spot in which to reverse the waistline-widening effects of last night’s dinner (I omitted mention of a mint and chocolate calorie-burst in my earlier account – put it down to denial). The memory of this sugar-hit keeps me thrashing around on the running machine for a good hour or so. Sweat-dripped and aching, I feel infinitely masculine. If only Erin could see me now…

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Price per night from $308.63