LONDON
Original cornicing and high ceilings are complemented by modern luxury rather than overshadowed by it. On the ground floor, the bar is small, dark and quietly glamorous- a place for cocktails and fizz rather than dining, because this hotel doesn’ t pretend to be something it isn’ t. There is no restaurant here. Instead, you are gently pushed outward into a neighbourhood of exquisite options: Peggy Porschen’ s pink-frilled cakes around the corner, Tom Tom café for coffee and excellent eggs with its snaking queues desperate for a coveted table, and Bayley & Sage for deli treasures. It’ s a location that frankly demands that you explore.
Stepping outside, the square is a study in elegance. White façades gleam, railings shine, window boxes bloom and Union Jacks catch in the breeze. Belgravia’ s architecture has a specific kind of poise- calm, symmetrical and affluent- and the hotel belongs to it completely. We felt a hop, skip and a jump from everywhere we wanted to be: King’ s Road for a browse, Sloane Square for a glass of something cold, Victoria for theatres and Pimlico for galleries, yet every time we returned, the square felt residential, hushed, almost secret.
What Eccleston Square Hotel offers, above all, is sanctuary. You come back to stillness. You draw the blackout drapes, sink into the Hästens and sleep. In the morning you wake to birdsong rather than buses. You push open the balcony doors, look across the gardens and remember that London can be a place of beauty, softness and escape.
There are flashier hotels. There are far larger ones. But few deliver this sense of refined privacy. Eccleston Square Hotel is not about grand lobbies or destination dining. It’ s about keys to hidden gardens, perfect sheets and a quiet luxury of feeling at home in the most elegant square in the city.
A retreat, a secret, a little sanctuary amongst the capital’ s wonderful chaos, and a perfect winter escape.
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