Hotel Review: Hart Shoreditch, London

The Victorian era meets today's young and fashionable East End.

Hart Hotel is built inside and around a Victorian-era cabinet-maker's workshop in Shoreditch. Many details of the hotel's decoration are designed to recall the building's past, including the "chandeliers" in the restaurant, which are made to look like candelabras of cabinet-maker's boxes. These grace notes lifted my heart, as my late grandfather was a cabinet-maker in the East End of London. Hart opened as a hotel just before the pandemic hit in 2020, then closed for six months and reopened with social-distancing, then lost its signature restaurant. A pop-up Latin American restaurant, Mostrador London, debuted in October 2022 and is set to become a permanent fixture.

Shoreditch is hipster central and Hart is within walking distance of hundreds of fashionable restaurants, cafes, bars and pubs. Art galleries and artists' studios rub beanies with fintech start-ups (whatever they are) and trendy boutiques. Every nation in the world seems to be represented by cigarette-thin twentysomethings wearing pre-faded faux vintage clothing. The hotel is handy for Old Spitalfields Market and Brick Lane.

Hart is part of the Hilton chain's upmarket Curio Collection. It seems pitched at young, affluent travellers who might arrive on business and stay for pleasure. It's chic and clubby and does not look much like a hotel, either in its public areas or from the outside. It largely succeeds in becoming a component of its frenetic, tony setting, rather than a haven from it.

I love the rooms, although I have no idea what style they aspire to - artisan art deco rock'n'roll orientalism, maybe. The headboards are leather, the mirrors are deco, the bedside lights are set in pendulous copper fittings and bathrooms are walled by marble. But my favourite fixture is the Bluetooth Marshall speaker, fashioned to look like a guitar amp. The beds are as soft as a hipster's hands and most rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows with bracing views across the East End.

The street-level restaurant space is currently occupied by Mostrador London, a pop-up eatery from Argentine chef Fernando Trocca, a huge name in Latin American dining. Breakfast is served a la carte, and the lack of a buffet is probably a good thing as it removes the temptation to try to eat the cost of the room. Lunch is a selection of colourful, sometimes improbable salads, to which the diner adds their choice of protein. The concept seems calculated to appease a carb-conscious clientele, but I circumvent it by selecting chickpea- and basmati-rice-based salads to accompany my melting rib of beef. The rice dish is particularly delicious, but I would have welcomed a larger piece of meat. The restaurant is well attended at dinner, which must speak for its quality in an area where even the most choosy foodies are spoiled for choice.

Tavla, the lobby cocktail bar, also by Mostrador, is buzzy and noisy with a DJ station and... no beer (although complimentary bottles of Meantime ale are available from reception during an apparently flexible cocktail hour). The music is loud and thumping, but does not seem to disturb the nomads on their laptops at the communal worktable.

Eating by the window at the restaurant and feeling like a part of Shoreditch street life.

Mark Dapin was a guest of Hart Shoreditch Hotel.