Wake up, London’s West End, there’s a peppy, party-minded new property in town. Serving giddy but grown-up glamour, the BoTree fuses boutique vibes with legacy hotel service levels and a liberal splash of vibrant local character.
Located a block north of Oxford Street’s posher end, where the neighbourhoods of Marylebone, Mayfair and Soho meet, the BoTree, an independent one-off opened in 2023, takes your fun very seriously. From the moment you step through the voluptuously curving bronze ribs that make a statement sculpture of its street-corner entrance and into the alluringly fragranced, lounge-style lobby, every detail is designed to make you feel like you’re arriving at the home of indulgent, well-heeled friends – friends with, to judge by the lobby’s soundtrack, an inexhaustible Café del Mar compilation collection.
There’s nothing so humdrum as a reception desk here. Instead, one of the young, diverse and dapper front of house team ushers you to a sofa or armchair and fetches you your libation of choice, before joining you for a quick and chummy check-in chat. The bright guest rooms, blessed with floor-to-ceiling windows and sporting palettes of white with chunky splashes of bold colour, continue the pop-glam vibe, peppered with chunky tomes of fashion photography, perky sprays of flowers, welcome dishes of pastel-pretty macarons and, in the case of the Soho Suites, a retro-kitsch, floral-printed turntable with curated vinyl selection for throwing a cute in-room party. These and several other suites also have bar areas for entertaining, and plenty of space for trying on the contents of the steady stream of crisp, Bond-Street shopping bags arriving in the lobby all day on svelte, designer-clad arms (it’s a London thing).
On the day of our stay, there was an extra buzz in the air, in anticipation of the opening of 77, the hotel’s basement nightclub, now open each week from Thursday to Saturday. After – in your service, dear reader – dutifully researching said event (and a goodly chunk of the cocktails menu), we can confirm that the sound system, given an inaugural commercial house workout that night by celebrity-darling DJ Fat Tony, is rump-shakingly good, the space darkly sleek, the opening-night crowd dressy, and the programming seriously ambitious. Opening weekend billings included US deep-house deity DJ Kerri Chandler and the superstar grime-house MC Skepta.
| Perfect for | Fly into | Right on time |
| The Hedonist | LHR / LGW / LCY | GMT |
| While you’re Out There |
| Shhhh! Tucked beneath a Mayfair wine shop, the moody but convivial cocktail bar Scales feels like a secret – one you might not want to share. Libations are rigorously crafted with fine-dining-level love, combining rare spirits with seasonings and tinctures made in-house from local, seasonal herbs and exotic spices. Who needs dinner? |
So far, so Soho. The BoTree’s Mayfair side manifests, despite purposefully swerving much of the formality traditional to hospitality in this blue-blooded postcode, in confidently delivered quality throughout the guest experience. Fat, cloud-like mattresses are top-notch. Minibar selections are cannily curated. Room tech is on point, and state-of-the-art glazing and soundproofing guarantee a gilded hush. Bathrooms, while trimmed with quietly funky design details, are sleek, marble-rich mini-palazzos for self-pampering. And those chilled, dapper staff members we met in the lobby also include a formidable concierge team, which includes a dedicated host for each of the eight guest-room floors, ready 24/7 to steam your shirts, get your Poochon groomed or bag you a table at the best of the area’s artsy independent restaurants. Of the hotel’s five concierges, two wear the Union Internationale des Concierges d’Hotels’ prestigious Les Clefs d’Or on the lapels of their snappy blue suits.
Where the hotel taps into its Marylebone creds is the boutique urban village feel of its intimate BoTree Bar and the lobby lounge and adjoining pavement terrace, spaces accented with funky, UK-made ceramics, sculptural pieces and arty lifestyle photography. The neighbourhood is distinctive for its retail profile of design-forward boutiques, creative indie restaurants and classy-casual neighbourhood brunch spots over big-ticket establishments, and there’s an intimacy to the BoTree’s public spaces’ design that belies the hotel’s size – it has 169 rooms and 30 suites. Even its 104-cover ‘coastal Italian’ restaurant Lavo, the first UK outpost of the vibey New York-based brand, achieves a comforting cosiness through its warmly decorated, banquette-rich two-storey layout arranged around a living olive tree, and breezy, preppy-styled staff, all chinos and tennis sneaks. A subtle but coherent thread of sustainability ethics, too, echoes Marylebone’s progressive-boho credentials – in details such as the recycled leather used in furnishings, bedding made from upcycled eucalyptus leaves and a visibly inclusion-forward recruitment policy – dubbed by the hotel ‘conscious luxury’.
Photography by Johnny Stephens and courtesy of The BoTree
