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Not all hotel room views are created equal. Here's our pick of London hotels making certain you can soak up some of the most beautiful parts of the city without having to leave your bed/bathtub/pyjamas for it.
Montcalm East, Shoreditch
The Montcalm East building on City Road's a divisive beast — you might know it as the one that makes you feel like you've been incepted if you look at it too long, a weird, pointed tower that looks somehow concave where it spreads against the sky.
The inside of the hotel, by contrast, is actually quite soothing: neutral colours, heavy curtains, nice textures. Big showers, good soundproofing. Feels kind of corporate, but also nicely peaceful. For the most light-flooded flex, it's the Sky High rooms you're after — 17th floor, views across Shoreditch and the City. There are double and twin options, or for the biggest window real estate with, unsurprisingly, a price to match: the Sky High Junior Suite. Starts at £540 a night.
Montcalm East, Shoreditch
Pan Pacific London, Liverpool Street
You know how sometimes after a long day of infinite luxury, you just can't even? The Pan Pacific London gets it. Stretch out on your floor-to-ceiling-window-adjacent chaise longue, and gaze down upon the city spread pliably beneath you. Reports have also been filed by our people on the ground of butlers bringing unsolicited cake to your door/reclining situation.
All rooms come with floor-to-ceiling windows; Deluxe City View Rooms start at £469. The 19-floors-high Pan Pacific Suite comes with hardwood desk, panoramic views, and unlimited — unlimited — soft drinks from the minibar included in the price, a bargain at £5500 at night (none of those numbers is a typo).
Pan Pacific London, Liverpool Street
Town Hall Hotel, Bethnal Green
We consistently admire, fear, and recommend Town Hall Hotel because/despite of the mild horror film vibes, left over from its days as a municipal courtroom. The corridors are labyrinthine and dark and Kubricky. The building's been a filming location for Black Mirror, Lock Stock, and Atonement — among others — a trifecta which tidily acts as a tl;dr for its surreal grandeur, grimness, and slickness. The Balcony Executive Apartment — which combines all of the above, plus bonus views starts at £310 for a night, or three nights for the price of two if you sign up for their newsletter.
Town Hall Hotel, Bethnal Green
NoMad London, Covent Garden
Housed in a grade II-listed building that used to be Bow Street Magistrates Court, the NoMad London exterior still looks grand but forbidding. Inside, the hotel group's harking back to its North American roots, with the interior all dressed up like a New York townhouse — looks like the location in a Noah Baumbach film where somebody gets writer's block, buys fine art, and has heated arguments about Ojai grape varietals.
The Royal Opera Suite adds a layer of Age of Innocence, 19th-century-high-society feels into the mix — dash off a short screenplay or some correspondence with the créme of London's cultural créme from your heavy, carved-wooden writing desk, while you sip a Manhattan and watch the audience arrive at the Royal Opera House opposite. Plus bonus points for the opera house views from the claw-footed bathtub.
NoMad London, Covent Garden
Treehouse Hotel, Oxford Street
Leaning hard into their views, all of the rooms at Treehouse Hotel come with bay windows and train carriage-esque seating, with a little table and cushions so you can admire the BT Tower over your breakfast. There are some weird stuffed toys folded into the décor you're going to have to make your peace with/bury in a dark cupboard where their eyes can't follow you, but beyond that you're looking at neutral-ish colours, splashes of raw timber here and there — Treehouse Hotel=tree trunks in the bathroom, you get it — and a lot of the usual mod cons, but with the views still very much the real USP. The Skyline King starts at £545 a night.
Treehouse Hotel, Oxford Street
Hotel Café Royal, Piccadilly
Not bad at unfettered lavishness, even in their lower-priced (still big-spend) rooms, Hotel Café Royal summits new levels of extra with the Dome Penthouse suite — a three bedroom beast perched on the rooftop of a grade II-listed building, among a sea of other grade II-listed rooftops. It comes with a terrace bigger than the average UK flat (factchecked against Actual Numbers), looking out across Piccadilly. And a domed ceiling — with telescope — in the main living room. Like with all POA deals — which this is — safe to assume if you have to ask the price, you don't want to know.
Hotel Café Royal, Piccadilly
The Zetter Townhouse, Farringdon
These aren't the most lavish or striking hotel balcony rooms you'll find in London, but it's a part of the city you don't usually get to see from above — rooftop bars aren't as prolifically scattered around the Clerkenwell and Farringdon area as they are in the west end and further east. That, along with the residential townhouse vibes, gives it a slightly forbidden, museum-after-dark frisson. Feels less like a hotel, more like crashing your friend's wealthy aunt's dinner party and then charming your way into a room for the night. Into it. Deluxe King Rooms with views start at £280 a night.
The Zetter Townhouse, Farringdon