The Webster, a lifestyle hotel brand better known for its fashion roots, has opened its first London property — and its first hotel under this design-forward concept — overlooking Lincoln's Inn Fields. The Webster Covent Garden brings 167 bedrooms and three suites across 10 floors, plus a food and drink lineup that reads like a mini neighbourhood in itself.
London studio Red Deer handled the interiors, working to a 'magical realism' theme nodding to Gabriel García Márquez: an everyday setting sprinkled with small moments of wonder. In practice that means bespoke furniture, terrazzo-style flooring, and work from British artists including Henry Ward and Emily Kirby. Rooms come in warm terracotta, oxblood and off-white tones inspired by old publishing houses and literary salons, with textured plank floors, hand-knotted wool rugs and brass-and-alabaster lighting. There's a deliberately analogue touch too — Robert radios and curated books on hand if you fancy a night off the phone.
The social side is split across three venues. Carmelina's, on the lower ground floor, is the signature Italian restaurant with retro black-and-white tiles. Carmelina's Al Banco upstairs is an all-day café-bar channeling Milanese neighbourhood bars, spilling onto a plant-filled terrace with striped awnings. And Carla's, a 60-capacity cocktail bar downstairs, doubles as a private events space. Add a 24-hour gym and two event spaces for up to 120 guests, and the hotel is clearly angling to be a hangout for locals as much as guests — management describes it as a restaurant, coffee spot, book club and bar that happens to have rooms.
Worth noting for your radar: this is the opening move of an expansion. The Webster Times Square is slated for New York in 2027, so London is the first chance to see what the brand is about. For travellers, it sits in a sweet spot — steps from Covent Garden's theatres and markets but on the calmer Lincoln's Inn Fields side, handy for Holborn and the Inns of Court. If you like hotels with personality, libraries to linger in and a proper cocktail bar underfoot, this one belongs on your shortlist.
