The Capital Hotel

The Capital opened on Basil Street in May 1971, when David Levin converted a row of Knightsbridge townhouses into what is generally reckoned London's first boutique hotel. Forty-nine rooms are spread across the main house and a modern annex, decorated over the years by names including Nina Campbell and David Linley, and the exterior was refaced in stone in 1995 to sit alongside its Victorian neighbours. It remains a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, yards from Harrods.

Downstairs, chef Tom Brown returned to the address where he first made his name and opened his own Michelin-starred restaurant in 2025, alongside The Capital Bar's gin and vermouth list. On the ground floor, The Library keeps a quieter register: a book-lined corner, banquette seating in dusty terracotta, and a run of sash windows onto Basil Street, set for afternoon tea by day and available on request for a small dinner or a cocktail hour in the evening.

For a self-contained stay, the twelve-key Capital Townhouse next door has its own street entrance and lobby, apart from the main hotel, and can be taken on exclusive use with notice: a discreet base for a wedding party or a small residential group, five minutes' walk from Hyde Park.