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Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel brings the vibes

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This is our review of The Hoxton Southwark hotel in London.

One of the trendiest hotel brands to emerge in London over the past two decades, The Hoxton is going global with new openings almost every month, particularly in Europe.

As the name suggests, it originally began with a hotel converted from an old multi-story car park in the Hoxton / Shoreditch area. In London it has since been joined by three others in Shepherd’s Bush, Holborn, and Southwark.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

I cycle past The Hoxton Southwark on a fairly regular basis and have always been intrigued by what the brand has to offer. From the outside the chic industrial public spaces look great and always seem to be teeming with activity, whether hotel guests, remote workers or meetings, so I jumped on the chance when The Hoxton Southwark invited HfP over for a night.

The Hoxton’s website is here.

Can I earn Accor Live Limitless points?

Whilst The Hoxton is owned by Accor, it is part of the hotel group’s luxury lifestyle subsidiary Ennismore which operates its own loyalty program called Dis-Loyalty. This is a paid membership scheme that costs £144 per year and gets you the following benefits:

  • 50% off newly-opened hotels
  • 20% off your first stay at a new brand
  • 10% off return stays
  • 10% off all food and drink
  • 1 free barista-made drink every day of the year

Right now, Dis-Loyalty is offering up to 35% off membership in its Birthday Sale, taking the annual cost down to £93.60.

Confusingly, some Ennismore brands participate in Accor Live Limitless whilst others, including The Hoxton, do not. Even if an Ennismore hotel is part of ALL (see the 25hours review we are running next week), you cannot book via Dis-Loyalty and also earn Accor points or receive Accor status benefits.

The Hoxton Southwark location

The only Hoxton hotel south of the Thames, The Hoxton Southwark is just south of Blackfriars Bridge as you head towards Elephant and Castle. The nearest tube station is Southwark (hence the name) where you can hop on the Jubilee Line.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

This part of London is a very central yet still surprisingly residential neighbourhood. It’s just round the corner from the trendy restaurants on The Cut which connects Blackfriars Road with Waterloo Road and Waterloo Station. The Cut is also home to both the Old Vic and Young Vic theatres, and you can easily walk to the South Bank in less than 10 minutes.

The area is perfect if you’re looking for a non-touristy but central, well connected and walkable neighbourhood with plenty of good local restaurants. In my opinion (and I may be biased, as I don’t live too far from here) it is an excellent location.

Inside The Hoxton Southwark

The Hoxton Southwark is located within a 14-storey new build brick tower and opened in 2019. The lower six floors are home to the hotel whilst the upper seven are home to The Hoxton’s owners, Ennismore. On the 14th floor is the destination restaurant Seabird, serving fresh Spanish and Portuguese inspired seafood from its expansive, outdoor terrace.

At ground floor you have a combined hotel lobby-restaurant-cafe-coworking space with industrial brick finishes and pastel velvety furniture.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Fancy sitting outside? The nice terrace means you can do that too:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

It took me a second to spot the hotel reception desks which are at the back. Check-in was quick and easy and my room was ready at 3pm.

Rooms at The Hoxton Southwark

There are 192 rooms in the hotel, which is surprising given that guest rooms occupy just five floors of the building and it doesn’t look particularly big on the outside. However, it is larger than it looks with a pizza-slice-shaped footprint.

It helps that a lot of the rooms are quite small. The entry level category, called ‘Shoebox’, is just 15 square meters, but even the largest ‘Biggy’ rooms are not massive at 35 square meters.

I was given a ‘Cozy’ room which is about average: between 17 and 21 square meters. ‘Cozy’ is about right: anyone with more than a large suitcase will struggle.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Rooms are a fairly standard rectangular shape, with a bathroom on the left. This was just about big enough for one – you would struggle to fit two people in here, unless one of you is in the shower.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Toiletries are by the brand ‘blank’:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

After the bathroom you have a small open wardrobe, safe and mini fridge:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

I suppose you could, at a push, use this as a luggage rack but I’m not sure it was designed for that purpose.

The bedroom is equally, well, cozy with a queen bed and rich red, almost black, velvet headboard:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

The two marble topped bedside tables are home to a Bluetooth speaker in the style of an old-fashioned radio and a retro rotary telephone:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Opposite the bed is the TV plus a small ledge with handful of books including ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ as well as the kettle:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Meanwhile, the tea bags and coffee bags (there is no coffee machine) are on the little table / desk in the window:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

and

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

The view from this room wasn’t spectacular, but I did get a glimpse of the London Eye and the cluster of buildings that surround it:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Dinner at Seabird

The Hoxton Southwark has two dining options: Albie, the ground-floor restaurant/cafe/bar and Seabird, the rooftop restaurant on the 14th floor that’s a destination it its own right.

Seabird is very trendy, and for good reason: the setting is stunning, particularly on the balmy summer evening we had, with a beautiful outdoor terrace looking towards the One Blackfriars tower and the river.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Outside tables are on a first-come-first-serve basis and we managed to nab one of the last ones around 7pm.

The focus at Seabird is on Spanish and Portuguese inspired seafood but there’s also an extensive raw / on ice menu and, I’m told, the largest selection of oysters in London with nine different types.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

The oysters were, I have to admit, phenomenal and include Gillardeau, the so called ‘Rolls-Royce of oysters’. Prices are between £5 and £6.50 per piece.

Small plates range from £8 for chargrilled padron peppers to £35 for dressed Brixham crab, whilst mains are from £25 for veggie/vegan options to £95 for whole lobster rice. We stuck with small plates so that we could try a range of different things.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

It’s not cheap but it’s beautiful on a London summer’s day!

Breakfast at The Hoxton Southwark

Breakfast is served in Albie on the ground floor. This was a bit of an oddity. When we rocked up at 7:55am we were asked if we had a reservation (no – when was the last time you reserved for breakfast at your own hotel?!) before being told that they were exceptionally busy despite it being exceptionally quiet.

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

The hostess told us that all seating had been filled with 8am bookings but she managed to squeeze us in around the corner by the window, which I actually liked.

Anyway …. the rush of diners never materialised during our 45-minute breakfast. Even when we left there were still ample tables available, so I’m not sure what happened.

When it comes to food, you can choose from an a la carte menu with prices from £9 to £13.50. I opted for the Hox Benny with a side of avocado:

Review: The Hoxton Southwark hotel

Conclusion

Let’s be clear about what The Hoxton Southwark has to offer, because it isn’t going to be for everyone. The small rooms are unsuitable for anyone with lots of luggage or families – if that’s you, then somewhere else may be better.

What The Hoxton does deliver on is (as the yoofs say!) the vibes. I like the industrial Victorian chic of the rooms: exposed concrete ceilings, modern brass chandeliers, deep red velvet headboards and rotary telephones.

Seabird is popular enough that I don’t need to convince anyone to go but it is a treat to be able to enjoy great seafood from an open-air rooftop terrace on a London summer’s eve. Albie, downstairs, offers a more casual but still cool place to work remotely from or have a meeting with colleagues or clients.

That said, prices can be punchy: even the smallest Shoebox rooms vary from £200 to over £400, depending on the night.

You can find out more, and book, on the hotel website here.


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Comments (35)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Lumma says:

    Southwark tube station is Jubilee line only.

    • daveinitalia says:

      Can you exit from Waterloo East station that way? I seem to remember the weird layout of ticket barriers back when I used the station last time about 12 years ago which meant there was a no-man’s land between the rail and the tube station.

      • Tomas says:

        It’s probably 4mins walk from Southwark (Jubilee) and 8mins walk Blackfriars (Circle, District, Thameslink, Southeastern). Couple that with a 10mins walk to Waterloo or 15mins to St Paul’s and it’s very well connected for somewhere that feels very un-central London.

    • Rhys says:

      Oops!

  • BJ says:

    Interesting title that got me thinking. It is clear from regular posts by @Harry T and @Michael C that some have very emotional connections to hotels in general or to one hotel in particular, in Michael’s case the Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit (he is not alone in this case as I’ve known others express their love of this hotel for years). However, try as I might, I cannot think of any hotel in particular that I have ever stayed that I feel a strong positive emotional attration to. Some might argue that this simply means I’ve been staying at the wrong hotels and I concede that in my pursuit of reward or cash value I have indeed stayed at a large number of anonymous soulless places. Still, I have also stayed at luxury hotels and boutique hotels and I fail to engage with those too. I think my indifference to hotels just stems from my needs of them; I perceive them only as places to sleep, wash and eat breakfast and as such my primary needs are that the housekeeping be good, the shower decent, and the breakfast satisfactory – all in a convenient location at an acceptable price in cash or points. There is simply no hotel I’ve ever stayed that I would return to because it has provided a positive emotional vibe. Contrary to this I am much more sensitive to bad/negative emotional vibes with respect to hotels. While I am happily indifferent to hotel positives I get easily annoyed by negatives in their many forms. I can immediately think of four in the UK alone I have stayed but never returned due to strong bad vibes: Hilton Grosvenir Edinburgh ( since rebranded), Doubletree Newcastle Airport, Kimpton Clocktower Manchester and Hilton Metropole London.

    • Rob says:

      Totally disagree! InterCon Amstel, for example, is a slightly knackered and badly located hotel that I keep getting drawn back to.

      I’ve written articles before about my love of IC Le Grand in Paris although the appeal of that place is more obvious.

      • BJ says:

        Yup, I do get it Rob and I know many, even most, get a positive buzz from hotels just like you do. I wish I did too as then I’d be getting more out of them but sadly they just don’t push my buttons in the same way. I can appreciate but stop short of getting excited. Same with planes and airlines. Perhaps I’m jyst jaded with too much travel over the years.

    • Michael C says:

      Very interesting point, @BJ ! On reflection, I guess it’s just as much everything else that surrounds the experience: apart from the lovely hotel itself, it’s meeting up with great friends in town, the family loving the city, the youngster experiencing all this at different ages, etc. Btw had my landmark birthday brunch there last Sunday! New GM has done wonders with the place, more than capably filling the shoes of local legend Richard Chapman. Our best stay ever.

      As an aside, for various family reasons, we’re also emotionally attached to the somewhat infamous Tavistock Hotel…but luckily not enough so as to have to celebrate birthdays there!

      And the Hilton Metropole is DEFINITELY on my never-again list: it felt like the set of some Barton Fink-esque Netflix series where they discover dubious body parts in some suitcase left in one of the rooms…!

      • BJ says:

        I tried to keep my thoughts focused on the hotels as hotels because it gets complex when you factor in the other stuff you describe. I may have become jaded with transport and accommidation but I do still lovevthe travel experience apart from that: tge places we go, tge things we do, the experiences we have.

        Btw, did you use your dining credit yet and how did it go?

        • Michael C says:

          Oh, haven’t thanked you (or written up reports) yet!
          We did Blue Elephant with light streaming in!
          As you mentioned, I’m sure various people could give us various
          reasons for going elsewhere, but the whole family loved the entire
          experience, so can’t ask for more than that.

    • Peter K says:

      I guess it’s a matter of personality. While it’s hard to get excited about another Hampton or HIE, but even just going up a notch there are often individual little things you can take pleasure from in a hotel. A nice art deco bar, a pleasing headboard like this article points out etc. Things can and do annoy me, but I appreciate the positives as well.

      There are few really stand out hotels for me but I enjoy a lot of the ones I stay at.

      • BJ says:

        Nit just talking Hampton and HIX although I’ve stayed quite a lot in both. I’ve also stayed high end places and stillvrarely moved. However, thinking about that I DoB appreciate getting upgraded to a proper suite but that’s more vecause of the space to spread out and it feels less lije a hotel. It might be that as I get older still I may want mire emphasis onvrelaxation at the expense of activity and at that time hotels may become a greater focus for me.

    • JDB says:

      It’s really the job of a good hotel to create this bond and many succeed as demonstrated by having a high proportion of valuable repeat guests that visit for years. We have many ‘go to’ hotels that might not necessarily be the newest or best hotel in town but offer a combination of all the important qualitative factors at a price that represents good value for what you get.

      We try to make it a two way street by meeting the management to create the ‘connection’ you say is missing. For all the modern technology, loyalty schemes, agents etc. which effectively disintermediate guests from hotels, top hotel management remains based on the personal, human touch.

      • BJ says:

        I hear you and get that too. There are hotels we go back to but it’s more a question of location and value than the hotel itself. There was one small family-run resort in Thailand that I stayed twenty years ago this winter. Despite having fond memories of that I have never been back despite ample opportunities. Interaction with management can be interesting yet many of us only do so due to grievances. A long chat with the GM of a London Doubletree was both fascinating and entertaining.

      • Michael C says:

        Along those lines, @JDB – at the Hua Hin Centara, which I was gushing over recently, I’d see the GM strolling around the grounds beaming and chatting informally to guests 2-3 times each day. At the end of our stay, he told me to write to him beforehand to ensure the same (stunning) room next time. Just impeccable all round.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      I actually find it interesting because there are some properties I have a fondness for even though they might not be the best at everything or the newest. Some examples from a couple cities I’ve visited alot.

      The Langley – will return here whenever I can especially if the price is right.
      GNH – small rooms but such a lovely boutique feeling hotel with a great breakfast, a cosy bar and walking distance to Booking Office (I’m not so fond of the Ren)
      Grovesnor House Dubai – never fault to have a great stay here, the staff are great, the lounge is great and it’s got some interesting bars and restaurant in and around it.

      But then I’ve stayed at so many other properties in London and Dubai that might’ve been newer, bigger rooms, better tech etc but I don’t see myself going back unless the price or situation is right, they’re firmly in the just a place to sleep, bath and breakfast category.

      • Peter K says:

        Personally, I liked the room and spa at the Langley, but it never emotionally moved me.
        The Grove at Narberth however wasn’t as new or bells and whistles, but the staff and kitchen were top notch. I really loved it there and it’s one of the few hotels I’d return to in a heartbeat.

        • Rob says:

          We might be down there soon, given that its now bookable via Hilton and we know the PR team.

      • DMK says:

        This is a very interesting thread indeed. Before covid, I had way more attachment to specific hotels that I was returning to again and again. But after covid relationships broke down. No meaningful upgrades, worse quality amenities, attempts no to do housekeeping and ever changing GMs and overall staff – made me think why bother. I was at Warsaw Renaissance last week. The receptionist: “Have you stayed with us before?” “Yes, close to 100 times and and I was the first customer to ever walk into this hotel”. Got my “higher floor, no dumpster view room” as an upgrade :).
        I still do come back to historic hotels like Bristol Vienna/Warsaw, Palace SanFran, Matild Budapest – but it’s more to admire artwork/architecture.

  • executiveclubber says:

    Hoxton brands always leave me feeling sorely ripped off between breakfast prices and room rates for what you get & service, as you highlight, is actively disinterested. I now avoid them

    • Colin_Thames says:

      Totally agree. A tiny room for over £200 with no breakfast. Is this a case of Style over Substance? When you’re selling a premium product, good service can compensate. Unfortunately their service reputation doesn’t live up to this.

      I cancelled a booking at the Hoxton in Hoxton last week. My wife rang to check on whether we could have a chair and mirror in the room with decent light. The girl answering the phone could not have been more unhelpful, verging on rude, eventually saying the Cosy rooms don’t have chairs, even though all their stock photos show them. Being treated like that and still shelling out your cash is like staying in an abusive relationship.

      Got a much bigger room (24 sq metres) at the Art ‘Otel for less money and the Amex deal thrown in.

      • Throwawayname says:

        The point is that some people are willing to pay for those vibes. If I pay a £200+ rate I expect to get a spacious room and good service. If I only need somewhere to crash for a night before a meeting/flight, I can always go to the Ibis and pay ~60% less.

        During my last visit to Seoul, I was intrigued by the new Mondrian (another Ennismore property), it looked really good and wasn’t massively expensive. Twin beds were only available at the lowest room type- far too small (21 sq m), without any chance at an elite upgrade nor access to the hotel pool (reserved for higher room types). I ended up staying in a 39 sq.m. room at an excellent 4* belonging to a Japanese chain and paying 15-20% less than the cheapest Mondrian rate.

        • executiveclubber says:

          It seems Ennismore are great at polishing a turd – their whole strategy seems to be copy + paste Soho House

    • TGLoyalty says:

      When it comes city hotels I actually really don’t care about breakfast. There are usually a dozen better breakfast/brunches to be had for a fraction of the price that don’t stop at 10/11am.

      Paying £200 for a tiny room might not be the one but all depends on what else you can get for your £200.

  • Jonathon says:

    Southwark is just Jubilee. You’d have to walk to E&C or Waterloo for the Bakerloo line. Not far but the wording here suggests Southwark has two lines.

  • Lux says:

    Booking for breakfast. Extraordinary.

  • elguiri says:

    Is it just me, or would this be the best choice for someone living or working nearby to grab a coffee if it’s ‘free’ each day for £94/year dis-loyalty membership?
    Surely that even beats the Cafe Nero deal…?

  • ChrisBCN says:

    Is that TV ‘cozy’ sized as well, or is it a freak of the photography that makes it look so small?

    • BSI1978 says:

      Think the 1st bedroom shot gives a more accurate representation of the TV size.

    • Andrew. says:

      Looks like a 32″ screen.

      Seems oddly out of place when it’s clear that the industrial style wall fixed table beneath appears to be designed to protect a much larger TV from being shouldered by someone walking past.

      The paneled wall with pictures above looks like a dust trap.

    • Rhys says:

      TV does look small on the wall, yes.

  • Stu says:

    We stayed 12 months ago I had read the reviews and everyone said the rooms were small. They are tiny!!!! I hated the lounge on the ground floor and breakfast was weird. Tried to get into the restaurant upstairs it was fully booked complained got now where went to pollen street social by Jason Atherton which was much better. I complained about the whole experience and got one nights accommodation refunded. Would never go back to a Hoxton

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