When Hotel Russell opened in 1898, its grand silhouette caused such a stir that not only did its Russell Square neighbours rush to copy its distinctive light terracotta façade, but the owners of the RMS Titanic also tapped the hotel’s designer, Charles Fitzroy Doll, to create their ship’s dining room.
Happily, the Grade II-listed building survived the intervening century rather better, and is just emerging from a lavish overhaul of its interiors.
Designers Tara Bernerd and Russell Sage have modernised the 334-room pleasure palace, now renamed the Principal, with a dose of creamy drapery, tufted fabric, and artwork that is intended to evoke the Bloomsbury neighbourhood’s artistic and literary heritage. The restored Palm Court is once more a light-washed eyrie, while chef Brett Redman’s Neptune restaurant sports a raw bar as well as an aquatic menu speckled with Exmoor caviar, Isle of Mull scallops, and cured chalk stream trout served with mole-spiced beetroot.
There is a 200-kilo custom-designed chandelier in the hotel’s entrance. There are 30 bespoke cast-iron panels surrounding the entrance lobby fireplace
INFORMATION
ADDRESS
1-8 Russell Square
-
Misfires and Monstrosities: three vehicular design disasters that show taste is in retreatFrom a multi-million dollar piece merchandise to a wretched Rolls-Royce, these are the low points of the year in transportation design
-
Thirty years after Dog Man Star, Brett Anderson looks back on Suede's album coversBrett Anderson talks cover art, photography and iconic imagery
-
A brutalist garden revived: the case of the Mountbatten House grounds by Studio Knight StokoeTour a brutalist garden redesign by Studio Knight Stokoe at Mountbatten House, a revived classic in Basingstoke, UK
-
Villa One at the One & Only Palmilla — Los Cabos, Mexico -
Martim — Wroclaw, Poland -
Tattersalls Hotel — Armidale, Australia -
KLoé Hotel — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -
Casa Hoyos — San Miguel de Allende, Mexico -
Littlenap — Hangzhou, China -
Casa Santa Teresa — Corsica, France -
Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune designs K5, a new hotel in TokyoStep inside Claesson Koivisto Rune’s design as a 1920s bank turns hotel
