Why book?
Not only because it is the last address of London’s fanciest hotel group, but because it might just put Shepherd’s Bush – so far a concrete jungle of Sainsbury’s Locals and kebab shops wedged between Notting Hill and Chiswick – on the map. Speaking of maps, each room is filled with The Hoxton guide to the area, who sings and dances to his easy-to-reach location, but also highlights a cluster of local haunts, Notting Hill‘s Buns at Home at Shepherd’s Bush Market. This is not a hotel that is getting a makeover despite its location, it is a place that is taking root.
Cozy Green Room in The Hoxton, Shepherd’s Bush
Set the scene
Overlooking Shepherd’s Bush Green, a patch of grass hollowing out the busy roads here, the purpose-built Hoxton, with theater-style signage splashing across the huge glass facade, seems more suited to Brooklyn than this rambling slice of the west. from London. Inside, you are first greeted by the bar, planted just opposite the entrance, where punters rush to pink leather bar stools for a late afternoon Lychee Martini. The lobby – as huge as the expansive facade suggests – seems to stretch for miles; speckled with spongy mustard chairs and fir-green sofas where a North Face signet-wearing, signet-wearing crowd taps on laptop keyboards and whispers into AirPods, framed by seven-foot cheesemakers. It’s the fantasy of a generation that works from anywhere.
The backstory
The first Hoxton opened in 2006 in – you guessed it – Hoxton, Shoreditch, located in a former car park. For eight years, it was one of a kind. Then, in 2012, Indian-born Ennismore Sharan Pasricha took over the property, deftly turning it into a blueprint for the cool urban hangout that so many hotels are now trying to emulate. Expansion soon followed: on the road to Holborn and Southwarkin Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and Rome before flying across the Atlantic in brooklyn, LA and Portland. Now the team is back on their home turf, hinting at a smart new stay out west. To create the space of their dreams, Ennismore purchased and demolished a brutal office block built in the 1960s, replacing it with a modern yet understated hotel that marks a shift in this borough’s tide under the radar.
The rooms
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