The One Aldwych may only be 10 years young, but it has already joined the top ranks of London’s luxury hotel set. Nestled between the Covent Garden theatre district and the Strand, and just short stroll across the Waterloo Bridge from the South Bank Centre, its distinctive triangular building (the home, until 1929, of The Morning Post) is an ideal haunt for arts lovers.

But One Aldwych offers something even rarer than an excellent location: after all, there aren’t many hotels where staying “home” actually feels like a feasible option. But this place combines class with cosy: it features the haute cuisine restaurant Axis, a health club, a pool with underwater music, an in-house cinema for private screenings, exquisite British-style breakfasts – even TVs in the bathrooms.

The hotel is the highly personal brainchild of Gordon Campbell Gray, who makes sure that One Aldwych is run with environmentally-friendly efficiency (right down to the vacuum-flushing lavatories) and with a polite, pleasant and highly refreshing lack of pretension. A real original on the five star hotel scene.