Brown's Hotel, a Rocco Forte Hotel

Boutique hotels come and go, but a few of London’s top hotels have been in it for the long haul. At the end of the last century Brown’s, a fixture since 1837, was starting to show its age. But after a big-ticket renovation (the top-to-bottom Olga Polizzi treatment) it’s back in business, as grand, refined and quintessentially English as it must have been back in its 19th-century prime.

There’s an element of the theatrical in its studied Englishness; you’re helped out of your car by a doorman in a top hat, in front of a row of eleven Georgian townhouses in the middle of Mayfair. The interiors, though, are an updated, contemporary take on the classic London hotel, managing to come off cultured and clubby while at the same time looking quite a bit more modern and sophisticated than the standard country-house drag.

Classics of British literature line the shelves, paintings by British artists hang on the walls, and The Donovan Bar is named for the photographer Terence Donovan, whose prints are prominently displayed. And for patrons of the West End theatres, Charlie’s opens early enough to enjoy a pre-theatre dinner from its menu of British classics, created by chef Adam Byatt.