Rates

A deluxe double room starts at £259, or about $320.

The Basics

With its new hotel at Marble Arch, Hard Rock Cafe International, Inc. brings it back to where it all began: London. The eponymous music, merchandise and restaurant company now has 186 cafes, 29 hotels and 12 casinos worldwide, but it started — by two Americans — with a small burger-serving diner in the city’s Mayfair district in 1971. After nearly 50 years, you might think the idea is tired, but on a recent Saturday night stay, at least in its first London hotel, the party is still going strong.

Take the large open-concept lobby and restaurant area, where two bars and a stage welcome guests with brightly colored furniture, friendly staff and nonstop tunes. Homage to rock music and rock musicians is found in details large and small, starting above the check-in desk, where hundreds of drum sticks hang down vertically from the ceiling, with electric lights at their tips. Rock memorabilia, including instruments, costumes and other clothing adorn the walls, and a Hard Rock merch shop is just across the lobby.

If the party stayed on the ground floor, this would be a rave review. Alas, the hotel, particularly its housekeeping arm, seemed to focus only on the fun, not the functionality.

The Location

The 900-room hotel, operated by GLH Hotels Management, is situated in a stately building once occupied by the Cumberland Hotel, on a corner of busy Oxford Street.