St.Clement Hotel, Where Staying In Is Going Out

Nick Jones returns with a new kind of London hotel….the St.Clement. Fabulous food, extraordinary design, a bar open until 3am and an entire creative neighbourhood on the doorstep.

There’s a small problem with St.Clement hotel: leaving is rather difficult. In theory, you could arrive with little more than your makeup and clean underwear. Complimentary laundry takes care of the rest, while a bathroom cabinet crammed with skincare, face masks and Harry Styles’ Pleasing nail polish could keep you occupied long enough to miss dinner. Which would be a pity. The food is far too good.

Jones, founder of Soho House, calls it removing the “kerfuffle” from hotels. Formalities disappear into a few friendly WhatsApp exchanges before you arrive. No check-in queue; just a relaxed welcome and someone to escort you to your room. Complimentary tea and coffee arrive on request, the minibar is stocked with complimentary snacks, and they’ll even unpack your suitcase. Luxury without the usual performance.

The interiors, by Alex Eagle and Sophie Hodges of Eagle + Hodges, balance restraint and indulgence. Vintage furniture, contemporary art, tactile materials and carefully chosen books create rooms that feel collected rather than decorated. Televisions disappear behind mirrors, exercise equipment hides in elegant ottomans, and loose arrangements of flowers bring colour and exuberance throughout. Glamorous without being precious, somewhere to kick off your shoes and stay awhile.

And that’s the point. St.Clement isn’t simply somewhere to sleep. It’s somewhere to meet friends, have a fabulous lunch, listen to music and forget whatever else you had planned.

Café Clement

Downstairs, Café Clement, led by Danny Bohan, formerly of the River Café, moves effortlessly from breakfast to long lunches and dinner. Its easy glamour, beautifully judged interiors and generous food encourage another coffee, another conversation, another hour. Hotels often talk about becoming neighbourhood meeting places. Here, the idea feels entirely natural.

Lunette

Eleven floors above, Florence Knight brings a different sensibility to Lunette. The restaurant is quietly spectacular, its restrained interiors allowing sweeping views of the Thames and London’s skyline to take centre stage. Knight’s cooking is refined, inventive and deeply pleasurable, the music thoughtfully chosen, the mood intimate and wonderfully grown-up. Dinner deserves an entire evening.

And when dinner ends, There’s Bobbi’s Bar.

Low lighting, rich wood, glowing bottles, shelves of vinyl and a superb Devon Turnbull sound system create a seductive atmosphere. Music matters here. So does conversation. There’s room to settle in, meet someone interesting, lose track of time and discover that the bar stays open until 3am. Jones has always understood that the best places give people reasons to linger. Bobbi’s might be his most persuasive argument yet.

St.Clement’s real advantage is its address.

Firstly, the hotel sits within the 180 Quarter, the creative neighbourhood developed by Mark Wadhwa and Tim Robinson around 180 The Strand, with Nick Jones bringing St.Clement to its riverfront. Once an overlooked stretch of central London, it’s now an intersection of art, fashion, design, music and food. Brutalist 180 Studios houses creative businesses and ambitious exhibitions, including Ryoji Ikeda’s immersive explorations of light, sound and data. Finally, there’s The Vinyl Factory, members’ club 180 House, inventive Ikoyi and relaxed Toklas.

St.Clement has already found its crowd. Burberry celebrated London Fashion Week here, while Frieze brought gallery parties and a deliciously glamorous Il Pellicano aperitivo residency to Bobbi’s Bar.

Fancy a change of wardrobe? Alex Eagle is next door. Flowers or pastries? Corner Shop. An exhibition, lunch with friends or an unexpected evening out? It’s all a few minutes away.

You haven’t even left the block. The rest of London may have to wait.

What makes this interesting is how hotel life and city life overlap. St.Clement doesn’t shut London out; it draws its creative energy in. It’s a place for solitude and sociability, where an afternoon doing very little becomes a wonderful night.

And through it all, the team makes you feel entirely at home without ever making a fuss about it. They know when to step in and when to leave you to enjoy yourself, making even the smallest interactions feel effortless.

The design is delicious. So is the food. The soundtrack is excellent. But the real attraction is how easily St. Clement becomes part of your London life.

For visitors, a new London address. For Londoners, a very good reason not to go home.

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St.Clement: 180 The Thames, 12 Temple Place, London WC2R 2NF

Official website