The closure of London’s Kettner’s in 2016 marked the end of a gastronomic era, the restaurant having been opened in Soho by Napoleon III’s chef Auguste Kettner in 1867, and which then remained a local mainstay in its Romilly Street address for the next 149 years.
It has now been absorbed into a row of seven Georgian townhouses and reopened as part of a 33-room boutique hotel. Kettner’s Townhouse is the latest salvo by the Soho House group, its crack in-house design team along with London-based Soda Studio, orchestrating a charming sweep of spaces that incorporate many original Grade II-listed details, not the least floral plasterboards, timber floorboards and fireplaces, wood panels and ceiling mouldings.
The fin de siècle mood hits its groove especially in the bedrooms, which are wrapped in hand-painted wallpaper and William Morris prints, and lit with Art Nouveau chandeliers. A champagne bar, meanwhile, competes with the piano bar for the post-prandial set.
