The Lalit London

A site like this one doesn’t come along every day — here, on the south bank of the Thames, a landmark red-brick late-Victorian grammar school has been transformed by an India-based hotel brand into a luxury hotel that wears its new owners’ stylistic influence proudly. The Lalit London defies the ordinary clubbiness of Victorian heritage hotels, instead opting for an intensely vibrant experience, from the eye-popping cobalt blue of the interiors to the flavors on offer in Baluchi, the hotel’s contemporary fine-dining Indian restaurant.

Hotel staff come dressed in traditional Indian garb, and the service itself seems to have taken direction from the hotel’s sisters on the subcontinent. Meanwhile the rooms carry on in a similarly extravagant vein — many of them were classrooms in a former life, and bear architectural traces of that history, beneath a layer of imported opulence. Bathrooms are particularly lavish and spa-like, with underfloor heating and elaborate walk-in showers.

To Baluchi, the award-winning restaurant, you can add the Naan’ery, a more casual Indian eatery, as well as the Gallery, for afternoon tea, and the Terrace, for an al fresco bite with a drink. A full-service spa, called Rejuve, rounds out the package, making this a truly retreat-worthy hotel — it’d be possible to forget, after a few hours at the Lalit, that you’re in London at all.