The Prince Akatoki London

Akatoki is an old Japanese word for daybreak. The hotel that carries it stands on Great Cumberland Place, a few minutes north of Marble Arch, and traded for years before as The Arch London. It is the first five-star property in the Prince Akatoki line: 82 rooms over six floors, finished in pale timber, backlit paper panels and stone, with the same restraint carried through to the reception hall.

Three rooms take private hire. TOKii is the largest, a low-lit restaurant of dark wood tables and timber lattice where the kitchen cooks across Japanese and Western registers and a sushi counter runs its own menu. It seats a long table for a private dinner or clears for a standing reception. The Malt Lounge & Bar sits on the ground floor with daylight and a view onto Great Cumberland Place, a small room of dark panelling and a stone counter built around a whisky and sake collection. The Prince Room is on the lower ground floor, deliberately plain, with house AV and mood lighting, and it is the one that takes a theatre layout, a boardroom or a seated dinner.

The events team runs weddings and rehearsal dinners, and the hotel gives the bar and restaurant over to brand work: a Japanese whisky house's tasting evenings, a beauty launch, a pottery exhibition.