When the British Socialist Party held its annual conference in Bethnal Green Town Hall in 1920, it’s likely they didn’t talk much about the building one day becoming a luxury hotel. They had other things on their minds, like denouncing the party leaders as police spies. And they probably wouldn’t have been that into the whole hospitality idea anyway, what with it being a public space, and them being Marxists.
I’m not saying the Town Hall Hotel, as it’s known today, would have changed their minds about all that. But I can’t help wonder, if they too had drunk Abacaxi Caipirinha in the wood-panelled council chamber, or eaten in a brilliant little Brazilian/Italian restaurant in what was possibly once the mayor’s office, if it might have given them pause for thought. Because for my money, The Town Hall Hotel offers a show of modest opulence seldom bettered in this city, one almost dizzyingly unique.
Why Stay at Town Hall Hotel?
A mad mixture of Edwardian architecture, art deco interiors, beguiling baroque corridors and memories of bygone bureaucracy, makes this is a hotel with that most meaningful of things - genuine, eccentric personality. Nothing here feels stretched for by stylists or led by committee. It’s like something Ken Adam might have designed to a Stanley Kubrick brief. A stay in the past of a different timeline, intoxicatingly charming, weird and special, before you even get to a fine roster of places to eat and drink, or your room.
What are the rooms like at Town Hall Hotel?
With an hour to kill in our suite, I watched a David Attenborough documentary about arctic otters in which he claimed, with their dense fur coats, they knew a thing or two about comfort. Hard not to throw scorn on that suggestion as I moved from the sofa to a bed so big it had a bit of the ice shelf about it. The decor here is stylish but never showy. You don’t feel like you’re being force-fed interior design instagram, as can happen in some similarly boutique-y places. Instead it’s, dare we say it, homely, if home is somewhere a phone call summons a mortadella sandwich, burrata and chimichurri for a not completely mental £14. And there’s a full kitchen in the bigger rooms should you want to cook (you won’t).
Ok, there was a scuff here, a bit of cracked paint there; stuff you might hope not to see for certain prices. But nothing to particularly begrudge. By the time we were in white dressing gowns, on our backs not unlike those otters, there was a short debate about whether we’d go peacefully when they tried to drag us out.
What to eat at Town Hall Hotel?
‘Embarrassment of riches’ isn’t a phrase used often in buildings associated with local government, but let me make a case for it here. There are three separate venues for food and drink at Town Hall Hotel, one of which, the fine dining concept Da Terra, has two Michelin stars and five to10-course tasting menus put together by Chef Rafael Cagali.
I started instead at Silk Weaver, the cocktail bar where, for £19, I had a Smoky Sour (rum, mezcal, Darjeeling sparkling tea and egg white) that justified it’s price-tag by it’s weapons-grade strength. A delicious jolt to the tongue, just the right side of phenomenally punchy, it begged a lighter follow-up: the Pink Elderflower Gimlet (£17) as tasty and playful as it sounds.
We ate at Restaurant Elis, in a beautiful, Austrian wood-panelled room on the first floor, where Cagali offers a more relaxed, rustic menu of small plates interpreting his Brazilian/Italian heritage. It’s worth noting that I’m vegetarian, but I did enjoy watching a man a few tables over take receipt of a BBQ lamb fillet skewer, which, after a few bites, he appeared to personally thank.
I felt much the same about my invigoratingly tasty BBQ courgette with goats curd and hazelnut. The cassava chips (a starchy, tropical root vegetable I had to google) were a bona-fide hit of a side, perfect for soaking up what, if anything, remains on your plate. And while I won’t long remember the pastel de pizza, a Brazilian filled fried dough that tasted like the kind of simple margarita pizza a child really likes, I’ll happily bang on about the warm chocolate-and-fudge cookie with raspberry ice cream that came in an iced-bowl so cold it could have preserved Stone Age man. Afterwards, I ordered another glass of the Edmeades zinfandel, in case switching wines was a jinx that would end my run of good luck.
Whether you’re staying at the Town Hall Hotel or not, Elis is a brilliant, slightly off-kilter east London stayer, impossible not to be taken by.
What are the facilities like at Town Hall Hotel?
A pool has to look pretty special to make me get a rush hour bus down to JD Sports in Whitechapel for an emergency pair of swimming shorts, and I can offer no better appraisal of the pool here than that. It’s heated, 14-metres long and empty when I went first thing, with a glass roof that lets you, floating on your back like those otters again, watch the rain fall through four floors of old council building from a grey east London sky in a way that feels surprisingly decadent against considerable odds.
The poolside gym is small and stuffed with equipment, including top of the range Pelotons, and the commitment to relaxation is real. Ruuby provides an in-room spa service: facials, massage, hair and nails. The works. None of the above will much interest your dog, but if you want to have a well-behaved one stay with you, that’s an extra £25/day. If you’d rather escape them for a bit, or they hate anything to do with local government, don’t let them read this.
What is the service like at Town Hall Hotel?
Shout out to the vibe. What could easily tilt into pretentiousness never even risks getting there. The man who served us breakfast gently mocked me for choosing the same thing from the menu that my wife had already chosen again on our second morning there, and he was absolutely right to do so. That, in a way, sums up the interactions we had with staff while we were here - warm, human, professionally unstuffy. High-end service with a loosened swing.
What’s the area like around Town Hall Hotel?
It’s a stone’s throw from the Young V&A, which, while ideal for kids, is a great place to go without them for an uninterrupted nostalgia trip, if you remember He-Man figures and Speak and Spells. The fantastic Victoria Park is around the corner, and it’s a short bus ride to Columbia Road Flower Market and Brick Lane. There’s a dream weekend to be had, somewhere in all that.
Why should you book at a stay at Town Hall Hotel?
If there is another luxury, boutique-y hotel in London so genuinely characterful, unusual and perfectly pitched as this, I’ll drink the pool. In a building essentially created to take care of life’s boring stuff, there’s not a boring square inch inside.
DETAILS
Address: Patriot Square, Bethnal Green, London E2 9NF
Price: Starting from approximately £160 per night
Closest transport: Bethnal Green Underground Station is a five-minute walk
Book now: Via Booking.com