The Londoner opened in 2021 on the south-west corner of Leicester Square, a sixteen-storey building that occupies six floors below ground and ten above. It is one of the most architecturally complicated hotels recently built in central London — the basement levels accommodate a private cinema, a wellness floor, a swimming pool, an events space, and a members' club, all engineered into the kind of footprint that conventional hotels reserve for back-of-house. The interior brief, by Yabu Pushelberg, deliberately undersells the scale: 350 rooms organised across the building, with the public spaces calibrated to feel like a mid-sized boutique rather than a large urban resort.
Rooms are organised around the building's curved corner footprint. The interior aesthetic is contemporary, neutral, with carefully sourced art and a minimalist British sensibility — wooden panelling, brass fittings, soft lighting, marble bathrooms with under-tile heating. The Tower Penthouse Suite, on the top floor, is among the more theatrical suites in central London, with full panoramic views across the West End. The 350 rooms include extensive connecting-room arrangements that the hotel was specifically designed to support, which makes the Londoner one of the better large-format options in London for families travelling with three or four people across two rooms.
The hotel runs six concept eateries and bars across its public floors. Whitcomb's, the signature dining room, takes Mediterranean-French cooking onto a terrace facing Leicester Square. 8 at The Londoner, the rooftop izakaya lounge, serves modern Japanese small plates under the direction of a chef previously of Nobu. Joshua's Tavern is an unironic London pub format with serious gin and live music several nights a week. The Stage, in the basement, is the hotel's larger event and live performance room. The wellness floor includes a 15-metre swimming pool, an extensive treatment menu, and a fitness suite that operates on a different floor entirely from the spa to keep the registers separate.
The Londoner's address — 38 Leicester Square — is geographically the centre of London's entertainment district. Theatres open at the door; the Underground is a minute's walk; Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery are within ten minutes' walking. For a guest whose London is the West End — theatre, museums, the South Bank, Soho restaurants — this is the most efficiently positioned five-star in the city. The hotel's facade, faced with over 15,000 blue terracotta tiles, has rapidly become a recognisable Leicester Square landmark on its own terms.
The wellness floor is the strongest argument for the Londoner as a wellness destination in central London. The 15-metre swimming pool, the steam, sauna, and dedicated treatment rooms are organised across two basement levels in a way that physically separates the wellness offering from the rest of the hotel — there is no walking-through-the-lobby in a robe, no shared lifts with breakfast traffic. The treatment menu is informed and the staff are clinical-grade. For a guest who wants a London-based wellness week without retreating to the home counties, the Londoner is one of the few addresses in central London that can deliver it at scale.
The hotel's connecting-room configurations and central position make it among the strongest family choices in London. Children's services include a kids' menu in every restaurant, in-room bath rituals, and a programme of West End theatre arrangements through the concierge. The cinema, accessible to in-house guests, is one of London's better child-rainy-afternoon assets. The address means the National Gallery and the British Museum are walking distance, and the Underground network from Leicester Square reaches every other part of the city without changes.
Rates from £450/night. Check availability at The Londoner.
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