Belgraves - a Thompson Hotel

Class: First

Style: Stylish alternative

Rooms: 85

The old song did say that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere — and it’s a proposition that’s been confirmed again and again by the Manhattan-born Thompson hotel group. For their latest test they’ve chosen London, another big-league luxury-boutique town, and in the neighborhood of Belgravia a setting that’s no stranger at all to high-end hospitality.

Belgraves aims to mix the local brand of luxury with their American-grown sensibility, and you’d have to say their British design team has hit the mark — the occasional decorative Union Jack proving almost superfluous. It’s perhaps a slightly darker, more mid-century look than many London luxury boutiques, a bit of a Mad Men influence, though with Sferra linens and Penhaligon’s bath products the comforts are quite up to local standards.

The library bar is the sort of private-public space that London does so well — not a hint of the velvet-rope scene that’s so common Stateside. An 80-seat restaurant aims to mix hotel guests with West London locals, and again, sights are set high; this is the embassy district, for one thing, and it’s not for nothing that nearby Sloane Square has become a byword for upper-class London. Time will tell whether Belgraves becomes a fixture on this landscape, but it’s clear early on that the Thompson group isn’t lacking for confidence.