An appropriate sense of occasion awaits guests arriving at the NoMad in Covent Garden. This, after all, is the beating heart of London’s theatre land, where its customary to expect an all-round wallop of drama.
The challenges were enormous in opening this hotel: the pandemic played havoc with the timing; staff shortages in the hospitality sector meant a slow start; and the building – or more accurately two conjoined buildings, one comprising the former Bow Street Police Station, the other the Bow Street Magistrates Court – proved a beast to convert. The police, in fact, gave up on the location back in the 1990s when the refit required to install modern technology proved way beyond government resources. The Magistrates Court moved out in 2006.
For New York-based, hotel creators the Sydell Group, into whose hands the buildings eventually fell, there was plenty to play with - a fine London location with a gripping history (Oscar Wilde, Emmeline Pankhurst, the Kray twins – even Vivienne Westwood - are just some of the characters who were arrested and put on trial here) and, right across the road, perhaps the West End’s most iconic establishment, The Royal Opera House. The reinvention of this site called for a blockbuster, and this is what has been delivered.
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First impressions are decidedly dusky. Through a glass entranceway lined with potted greenery, past welcoming staff in natty suits and white trainers, and into a seductive, deep blue lobby. There are glimpses of the adjoining Library (dark red), the broad staircase (deep brown) and the Atrium, the show-stealing, architectural addition to the site which encloses the rear courtyard in a three-storey, Edwardian-style glasshouse to create the Nomad Restaurant. It is dark outside, but the Atrium sparkles with light.
The original NoMad Hotel, which changed the face of hotels in Manhattan when it opened 2012, had Jacques Garcia as the interior designer, the past master of sumptuous colour and texture in his lavish use of rich velvets and damasks. Garcia has been replaced in London by New York design studio Roman and Williams (the team behind Ace Hotels and the British Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) who pay suitable homage to their predecessor with a similar colour palette and sense of drama.
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Corridors, off which the hotel’s 91 rooms radiate, continue the low-lit, moody blue theme though the rooms themselves reveal lighter, brighter interiors: oak parquet floors, Art Deco wall sconces and chandeliers, black lacquered wardrobes and consoles, embossed leather headboards, fabrics in pink, gold, mustard and cream. Letting the sunshine in to an otherwise strong, masculine building, is how Stephen Alesch of Roman and Williams describes the bedrooms and suites. If you can, opt for a room overlooking the opera house and, unless you’re not fussed, avoid those rooms with internal windows onto the Atrium.
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For art lovers, there’s interesting stuff going on here, too, largely sourced by the hotel’s art partner Saint-Lazare in Paris. Vintage exhibition posters are combined with a vast collection of sketches, oils, photographs and prints, most noteworthy being the black-and-white works by artist and dancer Caroline Deveraud (the biggest and best features on the lobby stairwell), the photographs by Martin Parr in one of the hotel’s three bars, Side Hustle (more of which shortly), and the multiple designs produced by dancers and set designers from the opera house.
What struck me most about NoMad, however, was an over-riding sense that this a destination hotel, not a place merely to lay your head. If all you need is a bed for the night, don’t bother.
Instead get stuck in: take a tour round the hotel’s bijou police museum with its original prison cells; have tea in the Library, browsing curated books about theatre and opera, crime and punishment; move on to good-buzzing, cool-talking Side Hustle (already voted one of the 50 best bars in the world) for a devilish cocktail and a spicy Mexican snack; head out to the theatre or the opera (the hotel has a new opera package on offer for guests) and back for a night cap at Common Decency (a nod to Oscar Wilde), the hotel’s new, smoochy subterranean bar where you can even choose to cosy up in an old converted coal hole.
Or you could bypass going out at all, have a spa treatment in a former prison cell before joining the merry throng in the atrium’s Nomad restaurant where a whole chicken stuffed with black truffle and brioche (shared between two) seems to be the order of the day. New England born chef, Ashley Abodeely, is ably in charge.
Or finally, you could throw a party. Take over the fabulous old courtroom, painted with a moody cloudscape mural, invite a crowd, and enjoy a dramatic night on the town.
Prices start from £525 per night for a Classic Guestroom. Find out more at thenomadhotel.com/london
