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.
ADDRESS
29 Romilly Street
-
Inside the work of photographer Seydou Keïta, who captured portraits across West Africa‘Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens’, an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, celebrates the 20th-century photographer
-
Park Hyatt takes Kuala Lumpur to new heightsMore than a decade in the making, Malaysia’s first Park Hyatt floats between levels 75 and 114 of Asia Pacific’s tallest tower, redefining intimacy in the sky
-
Obakki’s homeware collections tell a story of craft with a humanitarian missionAs Obakki launches its ‘Made in Morocco’ collection, Wallpaper* speaks to founder Treana Peake on how she developed the ethical homeware brand
-
Tobi Masa lands at The Chancery RosewoodChef Masa Takayama’s debut London restaurant transforms modernist geometry into a space of ritual calm and culinary purity
-
London’s smash burger obsession goes haute with Supernova MayfairNew York designer Sarita Posada taps into 1970s nostalgia and cinematic restraint for the group’s third outpost in the British capital
-
Peek inside Uchronia’s celadon green suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde ParkThe Paris-based studio teamed up with Pantone to transform a suite at the storied hotel into an aquatic dreamscape. Here’s how to check in
-
The Chancery Rosewood: A new chapter for London’s modernist iconAfter years behind closed doors, London’s most anticipated hotel opening finally arrives, proving that some things are worth waiting for
-
The Hart Marylebone marks the next chapter in London’s design-led pubsThe trio behind The Pelican and The Hero turn to Marylebone, fusing Victoriana, intimacy and culinary honesty in their most ambitious project yet
-
This 100-year-old private members’ club in London feels young at heartThe Sloane Club unveils a stylish new rebrand and redesign courtesy of Russell Sage Studio
-
The ancient and the erotic inspire Sessions Art Club’s Frieze London 2025 pop-up‘I think food should hum beneath the skin, like a good painting,’ founder Jonny Gent tells Wallpaper* on the opening of his temporary restaurant-cum-art-installation
-
Somerset restaurant Osip sets the table for a different kind of art showChef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Michelin-starred restaurant hosts an artist-in-residence exhibition exploring form, materiality and the poetics of place
