Which of The Resident London Hotels is Right for You? A Local Guide to Choosing Your London Neighbourhood

In London, where you stay has a real impact on the rhythm of your trip. Choose Soho for a focus on dinner, drinks and late nights. Base yourself in Covent Garden and your days naturally revolve around theatre, culture and exploring on foot. Pick Victoria and royal parks, grand architecture and Westminster are close by, with excellent connections when you want to venture further. The Resident has three London hotels, in Soho, Covent Garden and Victoria. All three put you in the heart of the capital, but each offers a distinctly different experience.

Soho: For food, nightlife and London after dark

If you love great restaurants, independent shops, cocktails, live music and being in the middle of things, you’ll love Soho. Few neighbourhoods pack as much into such a small part of central London. Soho sits in the West End, with Carnaby Street, Chinatown and Old Compton Street all close together, with highlights in the area being the restaurants, nightlife, shopping and LGBTQ+ culture. 

If you love eating your way around a city...

Choose Soho. Chinatown brings together a remarkable selection of places to eat, while Soho itself mixes long-established restaurants with contemporary dining rooms and bars. It means you can stop for coffee, eat lunch somewhere entirely different and have several choices for dinner and drinks without spending a large part of your day traversing London. In the evenings, the same principle applies. Soho is home to established music venues including Ronnie Scott’s and the 100 Club, with the wider West End theatre district close by too.

If you love shopping with personality...

Soho gives you easy access to the big names of Regent Street and Oxford Street, but there’s plenty more to see when you start exploring its smaller streets. Carnaby combines shops with restaurants and bars, while Berwick Street offers a different side of the neighbourhood.

Tip from The Resident Insiders: Music lovers should make time for Berwick Street and its surroundings. Soho’s record shops include independent names like Reckless Records, Sister Ray and Phonica Records situated close together.

Covent Garden: for theatre, culture and exploring on foot

If you love theatre, architecture, independent shops and discovering a city on foot, you’ll love Covent Garden. Although Soho and Covent Garden are close neighbours, they feel quite different as individual places. Covent Garden is really the heart of London’s theatre scene - the Piazza, Seven Dials, the Strand and numerous West End theatres are concentrated nearby, and Covent Garden lists more than 20 theatres in and around the area, including the Royal Ballet and Opera and Theatre Royal Drury Lane. For theatre lovers, that means an evening performance can become part of the whole evening rather than a destination you travel to and from. Have dinner beforehand, see a show, then find somewhere for a drink afterwards, all within the same neighbourhood.