NoMad London

A courtroom is an odd place to look for romance, but the old Bow Street Magistrates’ Court has been sitting on this corner since Victorian times, and Oscar Wilde once stood trial where the reception desk now stands. The NoMad group, transplanted from New York, took the Grade II listed building and reopened it in 2021 as a hotel that trades on that history rather than papering over it, keeping the old court’s bones visible in the bones of the bar and the shape of several suites.

The rooms lean into a slightly theatrical, moody glamour: dark wood panelling, brass fittings, deep colours, heavy curtains. It photographs beautifully, and in person the conversion of old cell blocks and courtrooms into bedrooms and a glass-roofed atrium is genuinely well handled rather than gimmicky, with enough restraint that it never tips into pastiche. Bathrooms are generously sized for central London and the beds are properly comfortable, which matters more than the decor once the lights go off.

Downstairs, the restaurant Twenty8 (named for the hotel’s address on both sides of the Atlantic) does a big, confident American brasserie menu under a high glass ceiling with an art deco edge. Expect steaks, oysters, a raw bar and a wine list weighted towards the sort of bottles that suit a celebratory dinner rather than a quick weeknight bite. It suits a group dinner or a late supper after the Royal Opera House more than a quiet conversation for two, and the room can get properly loud when full, with the acoustics of the glass atrium doing the noise no favours.

The location does the rest of the work: you step out onto Bow Street with the Royal Opera House opposite and Covent Garden’s tourist crush on your doorstep, which is either exactly what you want from a stay in this part of town or reason enough to base yourself somewhere quieter. Rates sit at the top end for the area, in line with what a boutique hotel from a well known international operator now commands in central London, and there is a genuine buzz to the lobby most evenings that non-guests clearly come to sample too.

The honest caveat: for the price, some guests find the rooms smaller than the grandeur of the public spaces suggests, and the atrium bar can be busy with passers-through most evenings rather than a quiet retreat after a long day. Book it for the building and the buzz, not for hush, and expect to share the ground floor with a fair number of people who are not staying upstairs.