Hotel brands

Accor sorts its brands into segments, and our brand pages follow that order. Raffles, Fairmont and Sofitel sit in the Luxury segment. Morgans Originals and The Hoxton belong to the Lifestyle brands that Accor groups under Ennismore. Pullman is Premium, Novotel and TRIBE are Midscale, and ibis is Economy. Those are the nine brands with a hotel on our London list for couples.

The segment tells you what to expect for two before you open a review. In London, only the three Luxury hotels, Sofitel London St James, Raffles London at The OWO and The Savoy, pair a MICHELIN-starred restaurant with a spa that has treatment rooms. Lower down, the reasons to book are a station at the door, a rooftop bar or a room sized for two. Accor's London city page lists 52 hotels across its brands, and two of them are Sofitels: Sofitel London St James, in St James's, and Sofitel London Heathrow, joined to Terminal 5. Only the first is on our list for couples.

The three differ most in their buildings and their spas, since each has one restaurant with a MICHELIN star. Raffles London at The OWO fills the Edwardian Old War Office on Whitehall and is the first Raffles in the United Kingdom. Its Guerlain Spa is the largest of the three, 2,500 m² with nine treatment rooms, two double VIP suites, a Couples Retreat with two therapists and a 20 m pool. The hotel holds three MICHELIN Keys and a Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star rating.

The Savoy, A Fairmont Hotel, opened on the Strand in 1889 and keeps three Gordon Ramsay restaurants and the American Bar. Its River View Suites face the Thames, and it also holds three MICHELIN Keys and a Forbes Five-Star rating, but its Beauty & Fitness spa has three treatment rooms and publishes no double room. Sofitel London St James, in a 1923 bank building on Waterloo Place, holds one MICHELIN Key and a Forbes Four-Star rating. It puts the starred table and a spa with a private couples' suite closest together, which is why it comes first on our list.

They offer a location, a bar or a view rather than a spa, since none of their hotels on our London list has a treatment room. Morgans Originals runs St Martins Lane London, a Philippe Starck design two minutes from Leicester Square, where the Blind Spot speakeasy pours until 01:00 on weekdays and 02:00 at weekends and closes on Mondays. The Hoxton Southwark has Seabird on its roof, the earliest check-in on the list at 14:00, and rooms from 16 m².

Pullman London St Pancras is 200 m from King's Cross St Pancras, with a gym open 24 hours and a sauna from 06:00 to 23:00. Novotel has four hotels on the list, more than any other brand: the tower at Canary Wharf with BOKAN 38-39 on its top floors, Blackfriars with an indoor heated pool, Tower Bridge with some rooms facing The Shard or the Tower of London, and Excel at Royal Victoria Dock. Every room at TRIBE London Canary Wharf sleeps two at most, and ibis London City - Shoreditch is 100 m from Aldgate East.