‘Exquisitely refurbished.’ Peter McKay and Douglas Blain have cultivated ‘an oasis of civilisation’ within a decadent cluster of Soho’s Georgian houses.

Along a narrow lane, a lamb-chop toss from Smithfield market, Clerkenwell’s hubbub surrenders to the ‘club-like’ calm of Peter McKay and Douglas Blain’s tumble of 18th-century houses.

‘An informal alternative’ to Pimlico’s pricey traditional hotels, The Orange is more like staying above a local pub – albeit a classy, artfully distressed local with an upmarket clientele.

In one of those atmospheric London entities – a street that feels like a village in the heart of the capital – this hip pub-with-rooms assumes the role of community hub, yet has ‘a great location’, within minutes of frenetic Oxford Street.

In an area of white stucco terraces, a Victorian former pub relives as a hip hotel for people who know what is good and know what they like.

Bright modernity filters through this smart, surprisingly affordable Belgravia B&B run by Charlotte and Matt Goodsall.

In chic yet quirky Notting Hill, visitors can live like a local at this eclectic Victorian house.

Georgian ‘Grand Taste’ and sybaritic comforts are the trademarks of Peter McKay and Douglas Blain’s eccentric hotel in gentrified Spitalfields.

With its classic red brick facade, smartly suited doormen and Knightsbridge location, the hotel has offered the same ‘splendid’ intimate hospitality for almost half a century.

Close to the hurly-burly of Marylebone High Street, the Miller family’s hotel ‘remains a well-polished haven of rather eccentric good care’.

Location, location, location: the small but perfectly formed Levin is just a credit card toss from Harrods, close to the designer stores and cultural hubs of Knightsbridge and a stroll from the green lungs of Hyde Park.

Close to the designer names of Fulham Road and museums of South Kensington, this ‘conveniently situated’ accommodation is a ‘home-away-from-home’ with ‘helpful, courteous staff’.

A step across the threshold transports visitors from London’s busy centre to the luxury of an Italian palazzo.

‘Convenient for Heathrow,’ wrote readers flying from Australia. They so ‘loved the feel’ of this gastropub with rooms half a mile from Richmond Park that they were planning a return visit.

Handy for the Square Mile and the West End, this hip hotel conversion of a Victorian warehouse, in its 15th year, is on its best form yet.

A theatrical verve and ‘exceptionally nice staff’ at this Clerkenwell Georgian town house have visitors ‘raving about it’.

This delightful ‘dotty’ hotel was once home to that Victorian purveyor of nonsense verse Edward Lear.

‘Simple, well located and representing good value’, this small hotel with a pretty, flower-decked Georgian exterior is ‘remarkably quiet’ considering its prime position in bustling Covent Garden.

All is serene at this handsome 1860s town house hotel (Firmdale Group) just minutes from Hyde Park.

West End experiences of every kind are on the doorstep of this well-heeled hotel in ever-buzzing Theatreland.

The quiet Regency garden square, on which this discreet town house hotel stands, was the original site of Thomas Lord’s cricket ground.

Sanctuary has long been sought (and found) at this calm, comfortable town house hotel.

A hop, skip and jump from Soho and the West End theatres, the zesty embrace of art and colour characterise this hotel as one of Tim and Kit Kemp's Firmdale group.

For good-value accommodation at the centre of things at, it’s hard to beat this historic Portland stone-built former county hall, now part of the Premier Inn hotel chain.