The Trafalgar St James: A refreshed London stay with great views
You'd be hard pressed to find a better located London hotel than this one, which overlooks Trafalgar Square, the Mall and the statue of Charles I, considered the central point of the capital (and one that often feels like its most hectic). Walk inside the elegant neoclassical 18th-century building, once the offices of the Cunard Steamship Company — and the Trafalgar hotel for more than two decades — and life slows right down. Unless you're bound for the seventh-floor rooftop bar, which offers a blockbuster aspect over the square.
The lobby, which flows into an open-plan wine bar and bistro, Rockwell, was refurbished at the end of last year and now houses crushed velvet curved sofas, patterned cushions and bouclé armchairs in jewel colours. It's busy enough for a great vibe but never too packed that you can't find a quiet spot to flop into. At the start of 2025 the basement was turned into a six-suite haven named after Spring Gardens, the street the hotel overlooks. The rest of the rooms are pleasingly large (and affordable), drawing a mainly American clientele: the Trafalgar is part of the Hilton Curio collection.
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Score 8/10Six storeys (plus the basement) house 137 rooms, including nine suites. The six basement-level Spring Gardens suites have a separate lobby area bursting with artificial ferns and Swiss cheese plants, lit using scarily real-looking artificial skylights. These new suites are decorated with embroidered fern or floral wallpaper, fabric headboards in natural colours — sand, green, light red — and natty rattan lampshades. Bathrooms are millennial pink marble with gold fittings and high-tech Japanese toilets. The snag is that there is no natural light in the basement, although the high-tech in-room skylights mimic the daylight outside. The bonus is that it's exceptionally quiet down here — it's hard to believe you're in the centre of London.
The rest of the rooms, on the upper floors, take a very different design approach. The moodboard is muted, sensible greys and blacks, with flashes of colour provided from red leather headboards and funky artwork, from fashion icons to peacock feathers. Even the entry-level doubles, the queen rooms, are sizeable at 28 sq m. Children are welcomed with juices, chocolates and activity packs, plus the chance to cuddle a giant teddy bear, Nelson (after the column), which is left in the room.
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Score 9/10The rooftop bar is the place that grabs the attention and from up here there is a full-frontal view over Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, as well as south towards Westminster and Waterloo. In winter heaters, battery-powered seat warmers and a menu of signature cocktails, such as the chilli-flavoured Arctic Sizzle, keep you warm (cocktails from £17); in summer there's brunch and fizz. Small plates are crowd-pleasers — prawn bao, Korean fried chicken and halloumi fries (three dishes for £43).
Downstairs is Rockwell, the free-flow lounge and bistro where the emphasis is on pairing food with drinks, rather than the other way around. There's the requisite Whispering Angel but also Chinese ice wine, Hungarian furmint and a nice focus on British producers such as Chapel Down and the Bolney Estate too. Rockwell's small plates are nicely affordable and tasty to boot — the wagyu strip from the West Sussex producer Trenchmore, ham and cheese croquettes and a monstrous charcuterie are excellent — but the real selling point is the cosy urban vibe, watching buses zip along outside. Rockwell is also the setting for a large breakfast buffet of hot items, pastries and fruits, supplemented with à la carte options such as eggs benedict and granola bowls.
A small fitness centre with some cardio machines and Peloton bikes, but you're better off getting your steps in marching around central London.
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Score 9/10The closest hotel to London's most central point, just southwest of Trafalgar Square. All of central London is walkable from here — Leicester Square in five minutes, Westminster in ten, the river in fifteen. Charing Cross station is a couple of minutes' walk away.
Restaurant small plates from £5Accessible YDog-friendly NFamily-friendly Y
Cathy Adams was a guest of the Trafalgar St James, which has room-only doubles from £329 (trafalgarstjames.com)
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