Raffles London at The OWO

The Hotel

Raffles London at The OWO opened in 2023 in a building that had been, since 1906, the Old War Office: the Edwardian baroque headquarters from which British military strategy was directed through two world wars. The building at 57 Whitehall, designed by William Young and his son Clyde, its 1,100 rooms now reduced to 120 hotel rooms and 85 private residences, is one of the most historically significant addresses in London hospitality. Winston Churchill worked here. Ian Fleming worked here. Decisions were taken in these corridors that changed the shape of the twentieth century. The hotel is aware of this and does not waste it.

The 120 rooms and suites are arranged around the building's original corridors, some of them the actual corridors through which Cabinet ministers walked, and furnished with a restrained opulence that matches the building's weight without competing with it. The architecture does the heavy lifting: coffered ceilings, deep window embrasures, rooms with proportions that the private sector rarely builds anymore. The suites, particularly those facing Horse Guards Parade, offer a view of a royal procession route and a perspective on London's governmental centre that is available at no other hotel address in the city. Natural light, on the south and west sides, runs deep into the afternoon.

The food and beverage programme runs to nine venues, a number that initially sounds like a marketing claim until you consider the building's internal geography, which provides a ballroom, multiple dining rooms, and the kind of spatial variety that a single large restaurant cannot accommodate. Saison, the flagship fine-dining restaurant, occupies a vaulted room and focuses on seasonal British ingredients with French technical precision. The Churchill Bar, in the former War Secretary's room, serves cocktails named for the building's historical associations and maintains a level of hospitality that the room demands. Mahaniyom, the Thai restaurant, occupies a former boardroom and represents the most unexpected dining decision in the hotel's portfolio, and one of the best Thai restaurants in London.

The Guerlain Spa, across the lower floors, is the first Guerlain spa in the United Kingdom: ten treatment rooms, a swimming pool, and a programme anchored in the house's cosmetics philosophy. The proximity to St James's Park, directly across the road, means that mornings can begin with one of the most pleasant walks available in central London. The Thames Embankment is five minutes on foot; Trafalgar Square is the same distance in the other direction. The position, between the political centre and the cultural centre of London, is one that no other hotel in the city can claim.

Best for Proposal

A proposal at Raffles OWO has the advantage of genuine historical gravity, not the aspiration to history that newer hotels manufacture, but the actual thing. The Churchill Bar's private room can be arranged for a proposal with the kind of discretion that the building's intelligence heritage seems to have embedded in the staff. Horse Guards Parade at dusk, visible from the upper-floor suites, provides a backdrop against which a question of permanence feels appropriate. The hotel's events team has handled proposals with a consistency that the Raffles brand maintains across its portfolio.

Best for Solo Retreat

The OWO's nine food and beverage venues mean that a solo guest need never eat the same meal twice in a three-day stay, in the same building, at the same standard. The Churchill Bar is particularly suited to the solo traveller who wishes to spend an evening in an exceptional room with a serious drink and a sense of occasion. St James's Park is outside. The National Gallery is fifteen minutes on foot. The hotel's position at the junction of Westminster, Whitehall, and the Embankment provides a London that few visitors access from a hotel bed.

Rates from £850/night. Check availability at Raffles London OWO.