The Kimpton Fitzroy London is one of the city’s newest hotels, but it is also one of the oldest. It is a pageant of Victorian architecture, quirky and decorative, with a huge variety of unusual interiors. But today it is also infinitely practical, superbly located in one of London’s most dazzling districts, and it offers a truly pleasurable, luxurious, informal experience.
As soon as you see it, you realize that it is something out of the ordinary. It takes up a full block on the eastern side of Russell Square, close to the like-named Underground station, five minutes on foot from the British Museum and a 20-minute stroll from Covent Garden. The architecture is incredible, a lofty Victorian fantasy clad in distinctive “thé-au-lait” terracotta, replete with friezes, columns and sculpture, with life-size statues of four British queens over the main entrance. The
