Long weekend in London – Staying at Stylish Park Plaza Hotel Westminster Bridge London

The hotel’s website is okay and its photo gallery was one of the reasons why we booked the hotel. But when we arrived we were completely blown away! The hotel lobby, restaurants and the hotel room are much more stylish than we expected. The stylistically confident selection of items, materials, colours and lighting effects is awe-inspiring.

Park Plaza Hotel Westminster Bridge London

The hotel’s website offers only a limited photo gallery that shows several rooms for conference and business needs. But the decor is the type of level you would expect from a boutique hotel: tasteful combinations of colours, materials and lighting make for a stunning WOW effect.

Check availabilities and rates here (this affiliate link opens in a new window, get’s me a cent or two…).

The hotel is situated next to Westminster Bridge and the rooms offer iconic views of Big Ben and the London Eye.

Visit London

We took the usual open top hop-on, hop-off sightseeing bus tour as it offers a good impression of the main attractions.

Excellent online resource for all things London: LondonTown.com is among the best websites about London. It features an amazing wealth of information with different navigation options by topics.

Since you can spend quite a lot of time travelling from one neighbourhood to the next you may want to check your London activities ahead of time and then choose the hotel based on your geographic preferences for things to do or restaurants to go to. LondonTown is perfectly suited for exactly that.

Eating out – Dining in London

No one knows for sure just how many restaurants there are in London. We were overwhelmed by the choice and it didn’t help a lot to narrow down by several criteria, there are still plenty of places to choose from. But anyway, at some point we were hungry and followed a friend’s recommendation to the

Les Trois Garçons in Shoreditch

The French restaurant Les Trois Garçons offers a ‘wild’ collection of decoration items. Handbags, deers or a giraffe may all be discovered more or less easily. We had a nice fish dinner with very kind service. Value for money was good.

Gaucho near Piccadilly Circus

When at some point Katja felt like having some meat we figured an Argentinean place should do the job… Based on their website we ventured to Gaucho Picadilly. They offer atmospheric rooms for private functions and the Chateaubriand was excellent, of course…

With the bill (very good value for money) came a clever thing: They added a business card of the Cavas de Gaucho, their associated wine boutique, with a note on the wine we had and its grape variety and origin. Well done!

Brasserie Joël

And then there’s a restaurant we didn’t go to but we should: The hotel’s own Brasserie Joël. The Times’ food critic Giles Coren gave the place a 9 out of 10 and several other critics praise Michelin Star winning Chef Joël Antunes’ cuisine as well. That’s for next time around…
Check out their website for an impression of the masterfully crafted menus!

London Photo Gallery

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Other London Hotels on our Shortlist

The Hempel – Small 5-Star boutique hotel
W Hotel Leicester Square – Innovative and chic design
Hotel Verta Battersea – Hotel at London’s Vertical Gateway…
Flemings Mayfair Hotel – Boutique hotel in Georgian townhouses
Radisson Edwardian Bloomsbury Street – Beguiling style and comfort
The Marylebone Hotel – Understated and contemporary luxury
Sanctum Soho Hotel – 6 distinctive mood schemes
Sanderson Hotel – 5 star luxury hotel
Blakes Hotel – hmm… see for yourself!

A friend’s restaurant recommendation included the Criterion. We’ll have to personally check that the next time around…

 
  Other stylish London hotels:

If you prefer you can also read this article and its photographs as a PDF file of the hotel review. joliprint.com is a free service that offers PDF creation off a web page.