'Like staying at a chic occult temple': Inside the new Principal London hotel in Bloomsbury
I had sort of forgotten Russell Square existed. I’m not sure what it stands for these days. Over the decades it has been a place for the bohemian London literary set-in-residence and also for cinephiles, navigating the brutalist Brunswick Centre to find the Renoir art house cinema, surrounded today by River Islands and Giraffes.
For as long as I can remember, the old Horse Hospital nearby has been a venue for avant-garde parties and happenings, and until the end of the Nineties the greenery within the square itself offered a nightly pleasure garden of wholesale debauchery for frisky insomniacs.
One thing has been consistent throughout: since the end of the 19th century, the look of the area has been defined by what is now the Principal London. I’ve always been fascinated by that building on the corner by the Tube: a mad-looking Bloomsbury answer to the Dakota in New York, designed by the fabulously christened Charles Fitzroy Doll, clad in fantastical, witchy Doulton terracotta. Last month, after the burgeoning Principal hotel chain spent ￡85 million on a reboot of the landmark, it became the group’s luxury brand flagship with the aim of redefining the neighbourhood.
The Principal chain should hit its mark. One reason I come to the area these days is to go to Lambs Conduit Street for its menswear boutiques and four-hour al fresco dinners at Ciao Bella. It’s the London street I most want to live in but I’d never really made the connection that Russell Square – and the Principal London, with its ornate pillars and cavorting putti on its fa?ade – is just five minutes away. The new hotel makes a point of it, with stacks of beautifully designed books from cult publisher Persephone in the hallways, and numerous other visual reference points.
The lobby areas at the new hotel are magnificent, and the restoration has a touch of the night about it. There’s dark wood cheek-by-jowl with multicoloured marbles, and a tiled floor depicting the zodiac surrounded by soaring green and brown quartzite pillars and chandeliers. It’s like a chic occult temple.
All that ends when you reach the bedrooms, which are straight-up-and-down five-star vanilla luxe with lots of taupe and texture, like show flats in a Mayfair residential development. Designed by Tara Bernerd (with her monograph placed in an act of decorative solipsism on each coffee table), it looks and feels very expensive.
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I was roused early one morning by a false fire alarm after an indulgent night at nearby Noble Rot, and I really didn’t want to get out of my four-poster bed. I would stay happily in my Signature Suite (costing from ￡472.50 per night) for a week and not get jaded by anything – apart from, perhaps, a bathroom door that opens awkwardly into the bedroom and a shower that floods the floor on each use.
My only other issues with the hotel as a whole were the mousecapades I witnessed in the café, Burr & Co (“We’re aware of the problem… and dealing with it”, promised a member of staff) and a few minor teething troubles with service. A flat white was ferried on a grand tour of the breakfast room by a Dickies Workwear-clad waitron while I gesticulated wildly to bring it to dock at my table.
A separate entrance makes the main bar and restaurant at the hotel feel like destinations rather than bolt-ons. Fitz’s has an Aleister Crowley meets F Scott Fitzgerald feel, and serves a nice twist on a white negroni with a berry-filled ice cube. As far as the room itself goes, I’d have liked the mood turned up to 11. Designer Russell Sage always does a fantastic job of assembling opulent fabrics and shelves full of antique curios, but at Fitz’s I wanted bigger ostrich plumes, extra sorcery and less jazz. More is more, after all.
When I visited, the Palm Court – where afternoon tea will be “a thing” that I will never bother with – was still under construction, and the seafood restaurant Neptune hadn’t started service. I had a soft opening lunch at the latter. This is going to be the restaurant of the summer, serving food for people who want flavour and invention but no carbs.
The room is grand, light and colourful, the menu design has an irreverent Robert Crumb Seventies illustrative tone, and the ￡40 seafood platter is going to be a cult dish. The beef carpaccio with dandelion leaves, anchovies and crumb (￡13) is the most delicious thing I have encountered in quite a while. I loved everything about Neptune – it is fresh, glam and fun.
In short, the Principal London is a really good hotel with a great restaurant. Which is more than enough to redefine Russell Square for me.
Room only from ￡157. There are seven accessible double guest rooms and one accessible signature suite.
