Vintry and Mercer

For years the City of London was a place to find the most flavorless luxury hotels imaginable; bankers and financiers, presumably, were thought to be allergic both to historical hotels and to memorable modern design. Those days, happily, are over, and it’s a good thing, because a hotel like Vintry & Mercer would have been unthinkable under the old rules. It gets its name from its location between two historical guild halls, one for the wine trade and another for textile merchants, and it takes its visual inspiration from the romance of an era when business travel was quite literally an adventure.

This means lush fabrics and vintage maps, a color palette that’s rich but well-balanced, and a pleasing blend of luxe ornamentation and contemporary simplicity. It also means rooms and suites that quickly grow in luxury as you ascend the scale. Speaking of ascending, there’s a modern British restaurant on the rooftop terrace with an impressive view of the City, as well as the ground-floor Vintry Izakaya with its Asian-inspired tapas menu. And what throwback-style boutique hotel would be complete without a speakeasy-style basement bar, serving craft cocktails in an environment that recalls Twenties New York?