Hotels open all the time, but not all have the ability to linger in your brain the following six months. Not the kind of place where the wallpaper is perfectly straight, the towels folded in exact thirds, and you do your best to describe it as ‘nice’. This year, a few new openings have managed to do the opposite.
We have kept an eye out for the newest stays that demand a bit of notice – and reservations (preferably before everyone else catches on). Some charm with interiors so carefully curated you half-expect the cushions to critique your posture. With renowned designers and artists such as Sebastian Cox, James Thurstan Waterworth, and Jaime Hayon shaping each space, the creativity doesn’t merely decorate. Every surface, every detail, is a quiet reminder that design, when done well transforms not only what you see but the entire experience.
And while some hotels excel at bold gestures, others whisper their brilliance, a wood‑veined bedside table here, a perfectly balanced palette there, proving that often subtlety leaves the longest impression.
Crafted at Powdermills, East Sussex
Set within a former gunpowder mill estate, Crafted at Powdermills feels distinctly different. With a 78‑acre estate of lake, woodland, and rewilded landscape to play with, it feels designed for exploration before you even open the front door.
The guest rooms are an education in material honesty. Developed with British furniture maker Sebastian Cox, they feature timber crafted to celebrate its natural figuring. Table lamps, room number signs and other small details were shaped using clay dug from the surrounding woods by local ceramicist Holly Dawes, who now operates her workshop on site. Bedrooms have the sort of reassuring heft, everything feels substantial, solid, and well-made. The architecture and interiors speak the same language: raw materials treated with precision, spaces that feel warm without being overly decorative.
Membership extends this sensibility beyond the overnight stay. For £180 a month (or £1,980 annually, with a £250 joining fee), members gain access to wellness facilities, studio classes, treatment rooms, padel courts, a sauna, and social spaces like The Green Room, a members’ cocktail bar that seems to nod rather than beckon. Priority booking for activities, guest passes, and a program of craft workshops and talks makes it feel less like a club and more like a place you want to return to, repeatedly of course.
There’s a sense here that nothing wants to be louder than necessary. And yet, after a day spent wandering woodland trails or lingering over a quiet drink, you suddenly notice how rare that is… and how welcome.
Lakeside sauna experiences and other wellness facilities available to all guests and members
Membership: £180 per month
Book Here
The Newman, Fitzrovia, London
At the Newman, interiors draw from early modernist lines, with a softened Art Deco influence that sits lightly rather than literally. Geometry is restrained, materials are warm, and the palette stays controlled throughout. It’s composed.
Rooms follow the same rhythm: balanced, well-proportioned, and calm. Details are beautifully ambient but nothing is competing for attention. It feels considered in a way that doesn’t need explaining. Below, a dedicated wellness floor introduces a different pace, slower, more inward. Treatment rooms, spa spaces and areas designed to recalibrate rather than perform. Upstairs, the restaurant and bar keep things aligned with the neighbourhood – assured, unfussy, and quietly sociable.
It’s Fitzrovia at its most resolved – a hotel that doesn’t try to define the area, but understands it instinctively.
Opened: 2026
Book here
Teffont House, Wiltshire
Tucked into the Nadder Valley, Teffont House is shaped by its surroundings: gentle, green, and expansive. A seventeen-bedroom country house, it keeps its scale deliberate, favouring privacy over presence.
Inside, the approach is measured. Expect a restrained hand: natural textures, softened tones, and rooms that feel settled rather than styled. Nothing draws too much focus, which allows the setting to remain the constant.
A new orangery introduces a brighter, more open counterpart, a space designed around light and outlook, leading directly onto the gardens. The kitchen is led by the team behind The Beckford Canteen, bringing a confident, ingredient-first approach with a clear West Country influence.
The grounds unfold slowly, encouraging time outside as much as in. This is not a place built around an agenda, more one that allows you to fall into step with it.
Opening: Spring 2026
Cambridge House, Mayfair, London
Part of the prestigious Auberge Collection, Cambridge House is one of those openings that feels both inevitable and a little bit mischievous – a grand old Mayfair mansion that has played host to monarchs, prime ministers and the kind of conversation that could make headlines long before it ever opened a hotel door. Now re‑imagined by Jean-Louis Deniot and Laura Gonzalez, it has one foot very firmly in its past and the other stepping off in a very deliberate direction.
There’s theatre in the details: a courtyard scented with jasmine that feels historically improbable in Mayfair, salons where afternoon tea might segue into an impromptu business pitch, and bars that are deliberately not tiny. The pièce de résistance will be Major’s Grill, from Major Food Group – think brasserie classics with flair and at least ten permutations of the martini you might actually order.
Auberge has tucked a double‑level spa beneath the Georgian roofline that somehow fashions three floors of hydrotherapy, heated pools and bathhouse‑influenced spaces without ever feeling like a pretentious add‑on, more like a necessary counterpoint to the city outside.
True to Mayfair form, there’s also a private members’ club element: nine club rooms and lounges conceived as places to linger rather than rush through.
It’s a hotel with history, yes, but one that seems keen to make a few new stories of its own.
Opening: 2026
The Zetter Bloomsbury, London
Set across a row of Georgian townhouses in Bloomsbury, The Zetter’s latest opening carries the brand’s signature irreverence, but here it’s softened, more residential in tone.
Designed by James Thurstan Waterworth, the rooms draw on Bloomsbury’s literary past, rich colours, antique pieces, patterned fabrics. No two spaces feel quite the same, which is exactly the point.
Bedrooms range from smaller, cocooned spaces to larger suites with freestanding baths and considered details that reveal themselves slowly. Downstairs, The Parlour acts as the anchor – part drawing room, part bar – designed for lingering, not turnover.
There’s no over-programming here. No attempt to compete on scale. Instead, it leans into intimacy – a hotel that feels closer to a private house than a public space.
To celebrate the launch, The Zetter is offering a limited-time offer of 50% off room-only rates. Due to popular demand, this exclusive offer has been extended until April 12th, valid for stays through the end of the year.
Opened: 1st April 2026
Book here
Six Senses, Bayswater, London
Occupying the reimagined Whiteleys building, Six Senses London introduces a different register of luxury to the capital, one that centres on pace and how a place makes you feel over how it presents.
The design moves away from the expected. Heritage architecture is retained, but softened through natural materials, filtered light and a palette that shifts throughout the day. There’s a fluidity to the interiors, nothing overly fixed, everything designed to ease you through the building rather than direct you.
Wellness sits at the core, but without theatre. A substantial spa spans multiple levels, with a 20-metre pool, thermal suites and a series of treatment rooms that prioritise privacy. More specialist spaces, from longevity therapies to biohacking treatments are integrated.
Bedrooms follow a similar line. Calm, layered and intentionally free of distraction, with an emphasis on rest rather than display.
It’s a notable arrival for London, not because it demands attention, but because it removes the need for it.
Opened: 2026
Book here
Art’otel, Battersea Power Station, London
Set within the wider Battersea Power Station development, art’otel takes a more expressive route. It’s immediate, visual and leans into identity from the outset.
Interiors are built around large-scale works by Jaime Hayon, whose signature language runs throughout. Bold colour, sculptural forms and graphic contrasts give the spaces a strong point of view, without losing cohesion. It feels curated, but with a sense of play.
On the 16th floor, the rooftop is what really stays with you. A heated infinity pool and bar sit within 360-degree views across London, with the Power Station’s chimneys positioned directly opposite, unusually close, and all the more striking for it. It’s a rare vantage point, and one that holds its own at any time of day, whether you’re in the water or just taking it in with a chilled Chablis in hand.
Art’otel’s art runs through every corner, from suites to lounges, with a small gallery space and active studio hosting rotating artists. The hotel keeps moving, too: rooftop yoga, poolside pilates, aqua aerobics, chef‑led tastings, and weekend gatherings. Wellness and creativity feel built-in, not tacked on.
Opened: Feb 2023
Book now
Art’otel Battersea Power Station
BEN BROOMFIELD
The Other House, Covent Garden, London
Set to open in 2026, The Other House will bring a quietly ambitious new Residents Club to the heart of Covent Garden, which feels both theatrical and exacting. Signature Club Flats will provide generous living space, kitchenettes, separate bedroom areas, and en-suite bathrooms with rainfall showers, interiors that flirt with Art Deco and theatrical touches without ever feeling costume-y. The local bistro and The Other Kitchen cater to the everyday as well as the celebratory, while the rooftop Peacock Lounge delivers 360-degree views over London, somewhere between a perch and a statement, we cannot wait to see it!
Beneath the surface, a private members’ club quietly pulses. Lounges, wellness and fitness facilities, a vitality pool, and a calendar of social, lifestyle, and cultural events give the impression that there is always something happening, all while Covent Garden will be bustling below.
Opening: 2026
SOUTH KENSINGTON, CLUB FLATS
Margate House, Kent
Margate House has quietly become one of the seaside town’s most talked‑about small hotels, and not because it tries hard, but because it feels genuinely of its place. Set on Dalby Square in Cliftonville, just a short stroll from the beach and the Old Town, this nine‑room townhouse retreat marries seaside ease with unexpectedly refined design.
Inside, the palette leans toward dusty pinks, terracotta and mid‑century warmth. Vintage pieces sit alongside bespoke furnishings, and each suite is layered with locally sourced art; exposed brick and muted colourways give the public spaces a lived‑in comfort that still feels considered. Bedrooms range from snug king‑size hides to larger rooms with sea views and rainfall showers, each appointed with bespoke furnishings, locally sourced art and simple luxuries like Haeckels toiletries and plush linens.
There’s no grand lobby, arrival feels more like being welcomed into a well‑edited friend’s home. The Drawing Room doubles as lounge and breakfast space, a place where complimentary drinks on arrival and thoughtfully paced service set the tone for the stay. Local cafés and restaurants lie close by, making it feel less like a stopover and more like a base from which to explore the town’s food and cultural scene.
The overall effect is one of relaxed confidence: interiors that nod to the town’s creative spirit without ever leaning into seaside cliché, service that feels attentive without stagecraft, and a location that keeps you rooted in Margate rather than detached from it.
Opened: 2023
Book here
Wildhive Eshott Hall, Northumberland
Wildhive Eshott Hall is set to be an impressive country escape. A Grade II* listed Georgian manor sits among 37 acres of gardens and woodland, restored with an eye for heritage.
Main house bedrooms are luxuries; tree-tucked cabins and converted stables come with private decks and outdoor baths, should you fancy being outdoors but still very much cocooned from the elements.
Interiors by Matt Hulme bring the outside in without ever flirting with rustic cliché. Warm, textured spaces echo the rolling moors and nearby hills, with harmonious blends of greens and earthy tones, soft chalky reds and pinks, and the coastal warmth of burnt ochre and rich orange. Antique elements from the original house sit alongside bespoke, handmade furniture by UK artisans.
The Garden Room restaurant leans on seasonal local produce, while wellness facilities – a gym, treatment rooms, saunas – ensure you can practice calm as sport. The overall effect? A place where heritage, landscape, and interiors conspire to make the rest of the world feel a little less urgent.
Opening: Summer 2026
Book here
And whether you’ve already checked in or are still pencilling in the anticipated stay of the new openings, it isn’t the view or the breakfast that will stick with you. It’s the little insistences: the way a door handle feels, the angle of a lamp, the quiet conviction that someone thought about every inch of the place carried along by seamless experience. These hotels don’t shout. They nod, just enough for you to notice – and you will, long after you’ve gone.