Hotel or Bed and Breakfast in London
August 17, 2022 5:38 PM   Subscribe

Overwhelmed with hotel options in London. Where should we stay?

Vegan couple, like music, thrifting, museums. Staying in Soho was recommended. But there's thousands of hotels!

3 night stay at the end of a longer trip. We know we are going to the Tate and Natural History museum, maybe a play, but mostly we want to wander around and have great food.

If anyone know a great little place that would be the best! Not strict about breakfast being provided or anything. ~$200 a night is the top end of our budget.
posted by kittensofthenight to Travel & Transportation around London, England (10 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
My wife and I have stayed in the Town Hall Hotel several times over the years and it's always been great. It is decidedly not in or near Soho or central London - it's out in the East End, on Cambridge Heath Road. But it's near Broadway Market and London Fields and Hackney and we love it. Easy tube connection at Bethnal Green station.
posted by niicholas at 6:13 PM on August 17, 2022 [1 favorite]


I stayed at Citadines Holborn-Covent Garden London a few years before the pandemic because it's across from a tube stop (Holborn), which made it super-easy to get to from the airport.

It's also walking distance from the British Museum and Covent-Garden.

We found plenty of vegetarian options nearby (but didn't pay attention to vegan, sorry).

They also had a coin op laundromat on the bottom level, which was extremely helpful for a 10 day stay.

It's not plush, but has a little kitchenette and a few nice cafes in the neighborhood for coffee & pastries plus there are plenty of M&S and Waitroses around to stock up the little kitchen. There was a coffee machine in the lobby and a limited breakfast offerings. But it was safe and really central for transportation.

Our best meal was at NOPI, an Ottolenghi restaurant, I believe there are vegan options on their menu.
posted by typetive at 6:22 PM on August 17, 2022


We stayed at Bankside house - it's the dorms for a law school that they rent out in Summer (so maybe not feasible?!) It was right near the tate, lots of fun walking, and reasonable price (3+ years ago)
posted by PistachioRoux at 7:17 PM on August 17, 2022


NB that this was twenty years ago, but I spent a delightful two weeks at a place called The Rhodes Hotel in Sussex Gardens. It was a five-minute walk to Paddington Station, and there was other stuff within walking distance that escapes me at the moment. It was cheap and clean, and the lack of elevator didn't bother me when I was younger and healthier. The view from the upper floors was worth it. The rooms weren't huge but all had modern ensuite baths despite the hotel being a converted historical town house.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:54 PM on August 17, 2022


Oh! I do remember that there was a Safeway supermarket on the way back from the tube station, and we'd pick up snacks and breakfast food there on the way back from a day of sightseeing. Bakery items were half-price after a certain hour, and the cheese selection was like nothing I'd seen in a comparable-size American grocery. There was also a great chip shop nearby.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:59 PM on August 17, 2022


Best answer: SoHo would be fine, but I'd opt for staying closer to/in East London.

I suggest Mama Shelter in Shoreditch as the best of all worlds. It's centrally located to most of vegan London's current high points (e.g. Hackney, Dalston, Brick Lane, and has easy transit access to get everywhere else. You're also right on Regents Canal, right next to Broadway Market, an easy walk to Victoria Park, Columbia Road Flower Market, Mile End Park, and all the fun of the boat cafes along the River Lea (seriously, the walk from Regents canal to Hertford Union Canal to where it meets the Lea is a wonderful traffic-free walk, and that point on the Lea is lined with restaurants and floating cafes and bars and wonderful, eccentric human energy in a welcoming outdoor setting). Rooms can be out of your budget, but there's almost always deals to be had that can get you into rooms for £150 or so (I jsut checked and, depending on your dates, there are offers from third party booking sites around £100, even).

I used to live in Bow and miss all the green space of East London now that I live in Southwest London. SoHo is fun to visit but mind you it's been unusually warm this summer and SoHo is dense, so it can get a bit gross.

If you need any vegan recommendations, let me know!
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:58 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


LSE student dorms that they use as holiday accommodation over the summer. I recommend the accommodation at High Holborn.

Basic but clean and very cheap (for London). Right in the center of everything, so you can wander out within a 10 minute walk for everything you could possibly ever need: museums, the opera house, vegan places, food.

On preview: I also stay in east London, and while I recommend this area to people coming to London on their second, or third visit, it's far too much to take in for a short 3-day visit, especially if you are already getting overwhelmed by hotel choices already. Definitely stay in central London.
posted by moiraine at 2:59 AM on August 18, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: It's not a cool little independent place but you can't go wrong with any Premier Inn - in my experience they're always clean, well kept, comfortable. Their "Hub" ones are a bit cheaper but have tiny rooms, although that's fine for me as I only need a place to sleep, not spend much time.

There are loads of them, including eastward - Shoreditch, Brick Lane, and beyond - which you might find more interesting and vegan-friendly, "vibrant", cheaper, and a little more rough-around-the-edges than somewhere like Soho (which is still a great place to go).
posted by fabius at 5:24 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: i was also gonna suggest town hall hotel! affordable, nice rooms with a kitchenette and bathtubs as i recall
posted by wowenthusiast at 10:26 AM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks all.
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:56 PM on August 18, 2022


« Older Strength Training for the Perpetually Clumsy   |   Can you name this comedy quote? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.