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London , United Kingdom

The Prince Akatoki

Price per night from$365.78

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 (GBP263.06), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

The Prince Akatoki Photos

Style

Japanese Georgian

Setting

Corner of Great Cumberland Place

Explore

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A series of Georgian townhouses moments from Marble Arch, The Prince Akatoki in London is a stately stay with a name that means sunrise. It'll soon dawn on you that a little Japanese influence is always a good thing, whether it's a superb sake in the bar, a rare Japanese whisky, some precision-cut sushi at Tokii or the chilled-out interiors palette. The decor is all calm, clean lines, neutral tones and understated artworks (even the botanics are streamlined and petal-free). Plus there are skyline views framed by floor-to-ceiling windows. The bustle of central London may be just outside, but you'll feel miles away inside this Zen sanctuary. Enlightenment awaits.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A signature cocktail each on arrival

Facilities

Photos The Prince Akatoki facilities

Need to know

Rooms

82, including 11 suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.

Prices

Double rooms from £276.21, including tax at 5 per cent.

More details

Rates don’t usually include breakfast (from £14 a person).

Also

If you really like to nurse your drinks, you can trust that they’ll be in safe hands at Malt – the bar has a wall cabinet where your bottle of rare Japanese whisky or sake is kept locked up tight until it runs dry. You’ll be given a key to help yourself as and when you please.

At the hotel

Gym, an app you can download to chat to staff (and use as a TV remote) and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: Nespresso coffee machine, Bluetooth speaker, yoga mat, TV, Malin + Goetz bath products, air-conditioning, minibar, free bottled water and tea-making kit.

Our favourite rooms

The neutral, minimalist decor in all of the rooms was inspired by a Japanese principle of harmony and balance – they’re all peak spiritual calm, so it’s a question of how much space you need for inner peace. The Executive Junior Suites and Studio Suites, both with a handy sitting space, have the most meditation potential.

Packing tips

You’ll need some pavement-proof trainers for hitting London’s prime shopping patch – and space in your suitcase.

Also

The restaurant and bar are accessible for wheelchair users, and there are specially adapted rooms.

Children

All ages are welcome, but the hotel doesn’t have a lot to keep mini Smiths entertained. Some of the rooms can interconnect, and there are suites with sofa beds.

Food and Drink

Photos The Prince Akatoki food and drink

Top Table

If you’ve always wanted to know how chefs make sushi look so neat, pull up a pew at the counter, which seats eight.

Dress Code

It’s all muted in the restaurant (black seats, polished-walnut tables, charcoal plates) – bust out the colour if you’re feeling brave.

Hotel restaurant

The Tokii restaurant pleasingly follows the same Japanese theme as everywhere else – so you can dine on expertly-crafted sushi and sashimi, sliced and styled by a master brought in from the motherland, with some occasional table-side wizardry (usually involving smoke). The chef is also partial to robata-grilled things: dishes include wagyu beef with spicy ponzu sauce and truffle fries, aubergine with chilli, spring onion, ginger and miso, and crispy pork belly with celeriac, apple and Japanese-mustard coleslaw. Breakfast is a Continental spread of pastries, fruit and cheese, with a choice of full-English or traditional Japanese (omelettes with miso soup, rice, grilled salmon, steamed vegetables and tofu).

Hotel bar

The Malt Lounge & Bar has a serious selection (at least 65 variations) of Japanese and international whiskies, stiff cocktails and, of course, a collection of rare sakes. Snacks to help steady you include robata skewers, beef tataki and lotus-root crisps. Afternoon tea is served here from noon to 5.30pm – make it a matcha, which is prepared at your table.

Last orders

Breakfast hours are 6.30am–10.30am (7am–11am at weekends). Lunch is noon to 2.30pm (3.30pm at weekends); dinner is 6pm to 11pm, Monday to Saturday (10.30pm on Sunday). The bar is open from 10.30am to midnight.

Room service

Dishes such as cured salmon with blood orange, fennel and yuzu, fish and chips, pasta and pizza can be served in your room.

Location

Photos The Prince Akatoki location
Address
The Prince Akatoki
50 Great Cumberland Pl
London
W1H 7FD
United Kingdom

The Prince Akatoki is in central London, steps from Mayfair and Marble Arch but snug in the locally-loved neighbourhood of Marylebone.

Planes

Heathrow Airport is about an hour away by car – hotel transfers cost £140 each way for up to four passengers (and three bags). London City Airport is a similar distance; transfers to or from this hub cost £130.

Trains

The hotel is a five-minute drive from Paddington Station, which is where the Heathrow Express arrives. From here, train services arrive from the Cotswolds and the West Country. Marble Arch (on the Central Line) is the closest Tube station, a five-minute walk away.

Automobiles

Tubes and taxis make getting around London a breeze, so you won’t need your own wheels – but if you do drive, valet parking at the hotel costs £48 a day.

Worth getting out of bed for

London may be full of drinking potential, but the Malt Bar is as good a place as any to get imbibing, especially since a list of killer Japan-inspired cocktails awaits. The hotel also has a workspace in the lobby if you can’t resist busting out your MacBook, and a gym to try to burn off all that steak and sushi. Central London is on your doorstep, with Marylebone’s cute bars and boutiques, and the grandes-dames department stores of Oxford Street all within walking distance. Head to The Wallace Collection for a wander around its wonderful hoard, gathered over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries by the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, and shared with the nation for free. If Amazon ain’t really your style, disappear into Daunt Books in Marylebone and pay homage to what a bookstore should be. A metropolis may have since sprung up around it, but you can’t get more original than having the address ‘Number One London’ – visit Apsley House to admire the opulent interiors of the Duke of Wellington’s one-time abode include an impressive collection of silver, porcelain and paintings by the likes of Velázquez and Rubens. And if you want to admire yet more aristocratic real estate, Spencer House, built for the first Earl of Spencer (an ancestor of Princess Diana) in the 18th century, awaits; the state rooms are open on Sundays. London calling: take a few steps out of the hotel’s doors and you’ll be on one of the world’s prime retail pathways. Don’t miss Selfridges for fabulous fashion, John Lewis for good old Great British reliability and, further down in Soho, Liberty, for many things, but mostly the boutique’s Tudor-style exterior.

Local restaurants

If you’re a millennial or just like that attributed shade of candy-floss pink, try NAC on North Audley Street, which serves brunch between 10am and 4pm at weekends, or that thing loved across the capital: the small plate (padrón peppers with brown butter and soy, aubergine with miso, tiger-prawn tacos with curry and avocado). Take a trip around the world while staying firmly in Zone 1 with a visit to Mercato Mayfair, a two-storey series of bars and food stalls, with a roof terrace and a wine cellar in the basement. And for the best dosas this side of Sri Lanka, amble across to Hoppers on St Christopher’s Place. Go full oligarch at Bob Bob Ricard, a Soho restaurant so decadent your table will have a buzzer to press for champagne; you’ll also be able to order caviar, oysters and -18ºC vodka shots.

Local bars

We weren’t lying when we said London takes cocktails seriously: at Purl on Blandford Street, fogs, foams and liquid nitrogen are employed for a little sippable sorcery – plus there’s a swing, jazz and blues soundtrack.

Reviews

Photos The Prince Akatoki reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

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 luxury hotel in London and unpacked their gourmet treats and luxury wares from Daylesford Organic and Selfridges, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Prince Akatoki in Marylebone…

If London has never quite been Tokyo enough for you, we've found the perfect compromise: the Prince Akatoki, a stately stay that brings a little Eastern Zen to Marble Arch. The name may conjure a wayward royal son, and you can be sure of a biblical homecoming (though the fatted calves are swapped for sake and sushi). It's no secret that the Japanese are masters at hospitality. The Prince Akatoki takes its motherland’s 'art, respect for ritual and innate elegance', starting with a calming minimalist decor, and transports the madding-crowded streets of Marylebone to the Far East. London is always in mind, though: floor-to-ceiling windows showcase the city skyline, and the W1 location means you're within cab-free distance of many major sights (hello, Selfridges). Back at basecamp, journey east with a serious selection of whiskies and sakes, killer cocktails and robata-grilled meals worth working up an appetite for. East meets west, in the best possible way.

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Price per night from $365.78

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