Hip eateries and bars have supplanted hovels and bawdy houses in this once-notorious area, but behind the 18th-century facade of three shop-houses Georgian London lives on. 'A real gem; a world away from large office-like London hotels,' writes a delighted reader. Peter McKay and Douglas Blain had the property gutted and refitted, with salvaged mahogany panelling and old stair treads for an authentic creak, then filled the interiors with antiques, books, portraits, artefacts. Expect to find Bagheera the cat snoozing by a fire in one of the cosy parlours. Bedrooms have names, not numbers. Ground-floor Dr Theophilus Garencières has a carved oak four-poster, a separate sitting area. The emerald-green Rook's Nest has a hand-painted four-poster, an old-fangled bathing contraption on a plinth, stairs to a sitting room with a lawyer's writing desk. All rooms have vintage bathroom fittings, a freestanding bath or powerful shower, air conditioning, a minibar and TV (here, as at London sister hotels Hazlitt's and Batty Langley's, verisimilitude has its limits). You can order from a 24-hour room-service menu and take the sun in a leafy patio garden among stone urns and cherubs. (Frances Thomas)