HOTTEST PLACE IN TOWN
No dress code, no sti upper lip: The Twenty Two in London’s smart Mayfair breaks with tradition in the most stylish way imaginable.
he streets of London’s Mayfair, where the composer George Frideric Handel once lived, have always embraced exclusivity, but these days even the wealthiest can barely afford more than a cubbyhole. The district’s lifeblood is a thriving trade in high-end goods. On New Bond Street – a two-minute walk for those returning laden with shopping bags, or 30 seconds in your Rolls-royce – lavishly designed stores carry all the major luxury brands. Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Dior, Montblanc, Boss... Famous auction house Sotheby’s rubs shoulders with Fendi and Zegna, and legendary gallery owner David Zwirner courts art lovers with the contemporary creations of some of the world’s most sought-after artists.
The neighborhood is synonymous with old money and sprightly gentility. Presumably anyone opening a hotel here is aiming for the kind of clientele that steadfastly hands lavish country estates and family jewels from generation to generation. But not Iranian-born hotelier Navid Mirtorabi: in 2022, he opened The Twenty Two, a hotel with 31 rooms and a members’ club in an Edwardian sandstone manor house, with the aim of attracting a younger crowd.
The hotelier fought for this project for six years, eventually convincing the house’s owners of his vision and even meeting with the Duke of Westminster, who owns the land. It probably helped that the duke, Hugh Grosvenor, is himself in his early 30s and perhaps thought the centrally located Twenty Two would be a welcome retreat should he nd himself at a loose end. There is no dress code in Mirtorabi’s hotel, with the credo that everyone already knows what out
t they look best in – though athleisure and beachwear are gently discouraged. The hotelier combines his unique elegance with a well-thought-out aesthetic, and interior designer Natalia Miyar bypassed stuffy brown leather