PILLOW TALK

A new generation of hotels offers comfort and style at reasonable prices

A new generation of London hotels is making comfort and style an option for all budgets.

Welcome to our round-up of eight affordable and stylish London hotels. The selection is necessarily subjective, partly because so many interesting lower-cost hotels have opened in the past decade, and partly for reasons of space. The brands represented here are a range of well- and lesser-known names, all in central London, and some with several locations in the capital. Exact prices differ depending on the time of the year and the day chosen, along with the level of flexibility you require regarding cancellation policies. Nevertheless, we believe these all offer excellent value for money. As ever, these are the edits – the full reviews, with many more pictures, can be found on our website at businesstraveller.com. CITIZEN M LONDON SHOREDITCH

This Shoreditch property, just off the Great Eastern Road, is a ten-minute walk from Liverpool Street train and underground station. The entrance to the building has a small foyer, then you take either the lift or a circular stairway up to the first floor for the reception, bar and restaurant. Check-in is via computer terminals.

The 216 rooms are all identical. My room has Vitra furniture, including a small desk with stool, and three power points – UK, EU and US – though I would have liked more, and one by the bed. The free wifi was fast and effective.

The bed takes up one end of the room, and the curtain and blackout blinds can be controlled by a bedside switch as well as the tablet, which also controls the room’s lighting, television and air conditioning. The tablet worked for me some of the time, while at others it was almost completely unresponsive.

There is a large choice of TV channels and free films, including some fairly recent ones. You can also stream your device through the TV so you can watch your own content. There were complimentary bottles of water in the fridge, then above that a safe and some hangers in an open wardrobe area. You could also hang your clothes on the wall close to the door. The bed was large, firm and the room quiet – I had a good night’s sleep.

The bathroom has a rainshower and power shower, as well as Citizen M toiletries – shower gel and shampoo combined.

The bar and restaurant/café are on the first floor, and are impressive both in design and the selection of food and drink on offer. You can choose snacks and canned drinks from an open-plan shop, while in the evening there’s a staffed bar selling everything from draft beers to mocktails. There are long, well-lit tables, comfortable sofa seating and individual chairs. The whole area is lovely and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows and even a balcony where you can enjoy a drink.

Breakfast (£13.95 in advance, £16.95 on the day) was delicious, with a wide range of hot and cold food, and lots of stuff I wouldn’t have normally tried (quinoa granola, for instance, which isn’t as bad as it sounds). The hotel has guest use iMacs on the first floor, but there aren’t any dedicated meeting rooms. Note also that there is no gym.

Tom Otley

IBIS STYLES LONDON SOUTHWARK

The best-known name here, Ibis Styles is one of three Ibis brands in the Accorhotels stable. The “Styles” part indicates that this is the top of the Ibis range and is “all-inclusive”, which means breakfast and wifi are built into the price.

From the outside, this is an Ibis. Inside, the “Styles” bit has been taken to the point where it’s frankly baffling. I walked into the hotel and wondered if I’d stumbled into the props room of a film studio. There were assorted chairs, a mini grand piano, a bar area hidden behind a pillar and menus hanging from the wall, yet only a few seats gathered around a coffee table where someone would be able to drink or eat. After a while an employee – unidentifiable as such other than his badge – came to my assistance, checked me in and was very helpful showing me around and providing reassurance.

Indeed, throughout the stay the staff were friendly and helpful but, because the lobby was so dark, I was often unsure whether I was asking the right person for help.

The 114 rooms, including eight suites, continue the dramatic theme, with red curtains and large black-and-white pictures covering an entire wall in the bathroom (which had a shower only) and, as a Gold member of the Accorhotels programme, I got extra toiletries in the room, a bottle of water and a bathrobe and slippers.

Rooms are either Queen or a Duet (twin). Mine had a small flat-screen TV and looked out to the Shard at London Bridge, although judging by the construction going on behind the hotel, that might not be the case for much longer. The table was easily large enough to work at. I slept well since my double bed was firm but comfortable and the room was quiet, unlike the previous Ibis Styles I had stayed in where there was noise from guests in neighbouring rooms and the corridors. I liked the way it was easy to turn out all the lights from the bed.

On the ground floor, towards the rear of the property, there is a large restaurant and café area, which is hidden from the lobby and is where the continental buffet breakfast is served. The choice was good – pastries, hot and cold drinks, cheese, boiled eggs, toast and a selection of jams. The movie theme continues in here and there is a mix of communal and individual table seating.

The hotel also has two meeting rooms with a combined capacity of up to 70, but no gym. Tom Otley

POINT A LONDON SHOREDITCH

Point A launched in 2017 with the remit “central, comfortable, affordable”. The brand has six London hotels, which includes this Shoreditch new-build.

Its location on Paul Street is very quiet for the area. It’s about ten minutes’ walk from Old Street underground station, with the City between five and ten minutes’ walk.

The open-plan ground floor offers a shared work/social space and has a clean, pared-back look, with white walls enlivened by illustrations that reference the local area.

There are 131 rooms (doubles and twins all en suite, from 8-12 sqm) set over seven floors. All have free wifi, Hypnos beds, blackout curtains, power shower, safe, mood lighting and a 40-inch flat-screen Smart TV.

My seventh-floor double had tall windows with views of the City. The no-frills functionality put me in mind of an aircraft interior.

Yet I found it an easy space to be in. Despite its small proportions, mirrors, off-white décor and the generous windows ensured it never felt cramped.

There was no wardrobe, just a few hooks with coat hangers and space under the bed for larger items. A stool folded into the wall and a couple of fold-down ledges functioned as a desk – a good idea but, in my room, the door handle to the en suite prevented one of the desks coming down. There were also AC and USB sockets.

The Hypnos bed was comfortable, but my pillow was hard and the bedclothes not very soft. Air con was quite loud and fierce, even on low.

My bijou bathroom was satisfactory. The shower head was fixed and there was no cap, which annoyed me as

I was unable to wash without getting my hair wet. Basic toiletries were provided in tubes fixed to the wall. Rooms are serviced every three days.

There is no restaurant/bar, but snacks and non-alcoholic drinks are available from the lobby work/ social space, which is also where a buffet breakfast is served. Priced at £9, it included cereals, fruit, yoghurt, pastries, fruit juice and great coffee.

Guests who sign up for the loyalty scheme get discounts on local amenities, bars and restaurants. Becky Ambury →

MOTEL ONE LONDON – TOWER HILL

Motel One was founded in 2000 and has 65 hotels across Europe. This hotel is in the City of London, 500m north of Tower Hill. You enter the glass-fronted, one-storey One Lounge bar and restaurant with reception towards the rear.

All the rooms are 16 sqm, but there are several categories (and price bands) among the 291 rooms because of the good views from the higher floors (up to the 15th floor).

My corner room on the 12th floor had three floor-to-ceiling windows, with good blackout curtains, so I wasn’t disturbed by any light, but had great views in the morning. The room was larger than many I’ve stayed in at this price point, with a small desk and even a comfy lounge chair. Perhaps because there were so many windows, the Loewe TV was above the desk and so was difficult to watch from the bed – not a problem since I was either working, asleep or staring out the window at the dawn over London.

The room had tea- and coffee-making facilities. My bed was good quality, the air conditioning ferociously effective and there were plug points everywhere, including by the bed. Lighting was good and bright, something that many luxury hotels might do well to emulate, and could be completely turned off from

the bed, leaving only a reading lamp, which is set into the bed’s wood-effect backboard, a nice touch

Back downstairs on the ground floor, the One Lounge has a design inspired by the nearby Tower of London. It is open 24 hours a day, and serves toasties and snacks, and then a continental breakfast in the morning (priced at £9.95). The area is full of seating better suited for relaxing and drinking than eating, so be careful eating in your smart shirt and trousers. That said, it is a comfortable and friendly space, and when I walked through in the evening, seemed a good place to spend some time. I had a look at the bar menu, which had a very good range of drinks, including a whole list of local (or at least UK distilled) gin. The breakfast choice was limited, but of good quality.

There are no business, meeting or leisure facilities. Tom Otley Z HOTEL TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

Z Hotels is a fast-expanding brand with central locations, which achieves low prices by offering small rooms (9-11 sqm in this case) and limited service. Each is very different; this is a conversion of an office block in Soho about two minutes’ walk from Carnaby Street.

The 121 rooms are on six floors (the ground floor is just the reception). Z Inside Double rooms are inward facing and Z Doubles have windows. Queen doubles are the largest. The windows kept out the noise from the street.

I was in a Z Double room, which was almost entirely filled by the bed; if two are sharing, one will have to clamber over the other to get out. The room has strong, quiet air conditioning, and an en-suite shower room with decent toiletries. The shower wasn’t the strongest, but was adequate.

There is a 49-inch HD TV with the complete Sky package. Blinds are electronically controlled. There is complimentary bottled water, tea, coffee and hot chocolate, and a kettle on the bedside table, along with power points and USBs. There is no wardrobe, but hooks and clothes hangers instead. Design details such as the pine backboard for the television, prevent the scheme from looking too sparse. The bed was firm and very comfortable.

The Z café serves wine, cheese and bread in the evening, and a continental breakfast, plus bacon sandwiches in the morning (£9.50). You can also buy simple food and coffee here during the day. There are no business or leisure facilities. Tom Otley →

TRAVELODGE PLUS LONDON CITY

Opened at the end of July 2018, this is Travelodge’s largest new-build hotel and the flagship for the Travelodge Plus brand, which claims to offer a “budget chic” experience.

The location is great; seven minutes’ walk from 30 St Mary Axe (aka The Gherkin) and three minutes’ walk from both Aldgate and Aldgate East underground stations.

Smart and contemporary inside and out with lots of windows, the building certainly doesn’t have a budget look – light wood flooring and mainly white walls, with splashes of colour.

Reception is on the right, with both a check-in desk and automated check-in machines. When I arrived, the hotel was fairly busy with a mix of families, tourists and business people.

The 395 rooms fall into two categories – Standard and Super. All feature a king-size bed, Samsung freeview TV, blackout curtains, desks and USB and AV sockets.

My Super room cost around £20 more than the Standard and offered more creature comforts, including a Lavazza coffee machine, hair dryer and iron. It was stylishly decorated in a palette of grey and blue, and had views of The Gherkin, with a reasonable desk for working. I slept well in the good-quality bed.

There were also a couple of pleasant surprises. One was the bottle opener attached to the desk. Another was the bath, a rare treat in a London hotel. A good raindance shower was over this, with basic toiletries for body and hair. Wifi was free for 30 minutes, thereafter it cost £3 for 24 hours.

The ground-floor Bar/Café has an array of seating, some with USB and AC power. It serves a selection of burgers, pizza, curries etc all priced at under £10. The buffet breakfast (£8.95 and free for children) was perfectly good, with continental and hot options. Becky Ambury HUB BY PREMIER INN LONDON GOODGE STREET Hub by Premier Inn launched in 2013 and there are currently ten in operation, the majority of those being in London, with two more scheduled to open at Berwick Street, Soho, and at Bank in the City during the financial year 2018/19.

This one on Torrington Place, which runs east off Tottenham Court Road, is close to Goodge Street underground station. Check-in is on the first floor accessed by a lift. You come out into a surprisingly spacious area, which contains the hotel’s reception, café and lounge.

Reception has a traditional desk, but the receptionist showed me how to check-in using one of the selfservice kiosks, which just needed my name to find the reservation. You then programme your own key card, which is necessary to operate the both lift to the floors and then to access the room corridors – an impressive and reassuring amount of security. As the building is a conversion, the route to my thirdfloor room was a rabbit warren of twists, turns, and steps.

My room was a good size, with space to walk around both sides of the bed – this isn’t true of all the rooms, and it’s hard to specify your requirements from the website, since there only seems to be the choice of one room type. There are lots of power points and USB charging. On arrival, the duvet was rolled up on the bed to indicate that it is fresh.

The design of the room is clever, with a smart, clean look, and yet clearly constructed out of tough materials to withstand the knocks it must get. The back wall above the bed had a giant London mural, and beneath the bed there was room to stow bags to make the most of the floor space there was. The wardrobe was open, and had a full-length mirror, which was both useful and added to the feeling of space.

On the first floor next to reception is the Lounge café where breakfast is served. Free coffee and tea are also

available 24 hours a day and there is a range of drinks, both soft and alcoholic, available to buy. There’s a limited range of hot and cold food, too, though with the West End within a ten-minute walk, it was never busy.

Breakfast is available for £5, which though the choice is limited, is pretty good value in London, where a coffee and croissant can cost you as much. There are no business or leisure facilities. Tom Otley NEW ROAD HOTEL

Opened in May 2018, this hotel is owned by three brothers. It’s located in the former textile factory where their father used to work.

Laid-back and stylish, the hotel is a surprise find in unfairly overlooked Whitechapel – a part of town that offers easy access to both London’s most on-trend neighbourhoods and key business areas – with Whitechapel underground station five minutes’ walk and the City ten.

The capacious ground floor celebrates the building’s industrial origins and has plenty of communal space with seating in an array of formats for working (wifi is free) and socialising. Décor is all raw finishes in tactile combinations, with mismatched yet elegant furniture in plush velvet. Quirky features, such as the factory’s original clocking-in machine and a bike rack in the entrance, lend a sense of fun.

Four different types of rooms, totalling 80, are set over three floors. I was in a Warehouse T, a twin room (20 sqm), which had parquet flooring, unconcealed fixtures and fittings and factory-style metal pendant lights.

Instead of a wardrobe there was hanging space beside a small vanitycum-desk – which had AC (UK and overseas sockets) and USB power – and on coat hooks by the door. The 49-inch flat-screen TV allowed me to link my smartphone, while the Hypnos bed was comfortable. The stylish en-suite wet room was very spacious and had a powerful rainhead shower and good-quality toiletries from Deborah Mitchell.

There are free vending machines on each floor for tea and coffee, with an ironing room on the third floor.

A sleek bar area serves cocktails and classic pub dishes and sandwiches. The main restaurant is Mr White’s English Chophouse, an atmospheric, smartlooking space, with a meat-focused menu. The restaurant also serves a full breakfast menu, while Cereal Grind specialises in cereals of every type.

In addition to the ample communal space are two meeting rooms, which can seat up to eight attendees or be combined for larger events.

Other facilities included a pool table, a library space and a fitness space on the top floor. Becky Ambury