Well established as a design capital — the famed Victoria and Albert Museum was founded in the 19th century as a design museum — London has become the world’s best hotel city.

There are the pillars of timeless elegance, like Claridge’s and The Connaught, which set the hospitality bar quite high while injecting glamour into the hotel cocktail bar and restaurant.

England’s capital also hosts upstarts like The Hoxton, which opened its first hotel in 2006 in Shoreditch, an East End neighborhood, helping to transform the district and redefine the hotel lobby as a creative hangout, aglow with laptops.

Game-changers like Chiltern Firehouse — opened in 2013, still white hot, and not just because it’s got a secret smoking room — and The Ned, the 252-room hotel and members club opened in 2017 by the founder of Soho House, continue to rewrite the rules of what hotels can be: a place to rest your head, of course, but cultural touchstones, too. That’s why The Standard chose London for its first address outside the United States — on Euston Road in a striking 1974 Brutalist building, opening officially in the fall.