11 Cadogan Gardens

11 Cadogan Gardens occupies four red-brick Victorian townhouses on a quiet street a few steps from Sloane Square, run today by Iconic Luxury Hotels. Behind the mansion-block facade with its Union flag, 56 individually designed rooms and suites sit alongside a cluster of richly decorated lounges, dining rooms and a garden bar. The look is unapologetically English and collected rather than corporate: portraits and antiquarian books, panelled walls, deep velvet seating and the kind of clutter that reads as a private Chelsea house rather than a hotel.

For private events the townhouse offers a handful of intimate spaces instead of a ballroom. The Library is the signature room, lined with leather-bound books, hung with historic portraits and warmed by a fireplace, with bay windows over Cadogan Gardens. The Chelsea Bar is the moody, low-lit social heart, decorated in gold and charcoal with leather armchairs, opening onto The Secret Garden, a planted terrace for al fresco dinners and receptions. The Curio is the most flexible room, a daylit space with its own off-street entrance and an adjoining lounge, while The Conservatory and the connecting Drawing Room suit smaller dinners and meetings.

The whole house can also be taken on exclusive use, with every lounge, dining room and bedroom given over to a single party. Enclosed, discreet and within easy reach of Sloane Street, the rooms suit a private evening built around music as readily as a milestone birthday, a launch or a small wedding. Note that the hotel's restaurant, Hans' Bar & Grill, operates as a separate dining venue.