Stacked From Cellar to Roof: An Evening at WC2H 7DX
A tall new hotel on Leicester Square, with a pub at street level, a restaurant off the lobby and a terrace near the top. Where to sit at each hour, and how a quiet visit upstairs is arranged.
01A Newcomer on an Old Square
For most of its modern life Leicester Square was somewhere people crossed on the way to a film rather than somewhere they slept. Cinemas took the frontages and the hotel trade kept mostly to the side streets. WC2H 7DX, which opened on the square in 2021, turned that around with one tall building run by Edwardian Hotels London and billed from its first week as a super boutique hotel, large in scale yet divided into smaller rooms that each keep a character of their own.
Its least visible feature is the one that matters most for an evening. Several floors sit beneath the pavement, dug out below the square, so the building holds far more places to sit than its frontage lets on. In practice that means a change of mood without a change of address. A pint, a dinner and a late glass can all happen under one roof, and nobody has to find a coat and face the crowd outside between them.
02Reading the Building From the Bottom Up
The easiest way to use WC2H 7DX is to stop thinking of it as a hotel with a bar and treat it as a stack of separate rooms. At street level, Joshua's Tavern borrows its name from Sir Joshua Reynolds, the portrait painter who lived on the square in the eighteenth century, and plays the part of a London pub with better upholstery than most. Whitcomb's, the restaurant, takes its name from Whitcomb Street around the corner. Near the top, a terrace bar looks out across the roofs of the West End, while the lower levels keep to quieter business, event rooms and spaces meant mainly for residents.
Nobody needs every floor in one night, and trying to see them all turns an evening into a guided tour. The better habit is choosing two rooms, one to arrive in and one for the last drink, and letting the lift carry the evening between them. Two rooms give a night a beginning and an end; five give it a timetable.
03Which Floor Suits Which Hour
Early in the evening the tavern is the natural meeting point, loud enough that nobody overhears a first hello and busy enough that someone waiting alone attracts no attention at all. Milena likes to be met there, standing rather than seated, since one of the statuesque names on the list is spotted across a crowded room faster than any message could describe her.
Dinner belongs to Whitcomb's, and a table is worth reserving well ahead on a weekend, when the square outside is at its loudest and walk-in tables anywhere nearby grow scarce. Later on, the terrace suits a dry night, with the lit signs of the West End spread below and the noise of the square reduced to a distant hum. On a wet one, a quiet corner indoors does the same job with less of a view and a good deal more calm.
04A Room Above a Square That Rarely Sleeps
Leicester Square is one of the least restful addresses in central London after dark. Street performers work the pavement into the late evening, audiences leaving the cinemas spill into it at irregular hours, and on premiere nights the barriers, the speakers and the cheering can carry on long after dinner. None of that is a fault of the hotel. It is simply the square, and the square is exactly why plenty of people choose to stay here.
If sleep matters more than the view, say so at check in and request a higher floor on the far side of the building, away from the square. If the view is the point, take the front and accept the soundtrack that comes with it. Either way, decide before the evening begins rather than discovering the answer at one in the morning, when changing rooms is the last conversation anyone wants to have with reception.
05Upstairs, Without Ceremony
A hotel this busy suits a discreet visit rather well. Guests, diners, theatregoers and people simply sheltering from the rain move through the ground floor all evening, and one more well dressed arrival heading for the lifts is part of the ordinary traffic of the building. There is no need to meet downstairs unless you would like a drink first. Once the host has your name, hotel and room number, checked once over WhatsApp, she comes straight up at the minute agreed.
Karolina makes a good case for starting somewhere else entirely. The London Coliseum, home of English National Opera, stands a few minutes away on St Martin's Lane, and she is happy to take an interval drink there and the last glass back at the hotel, a walk short enough that heels and a long coat are no obstacle. She is one of the raven haired names, dry in her humour and very easy company in a crowded lift.
06Dressing for Several Rooms in One Night
A building with a pub at the bottom and a terrace at the top asks for an outfit that works in both. Smart without being formal is the safe register, a jacket that can come off indoors, shoes that manage a short walk across the square. Nobody at the tavern will mind a tie, and nobody on the terrace will miss one.
The same logic applies to her. Tell the host where the evening begins and ends when you book, a pint downstairs and a glass upstairs, or dinner and then straight to the room, and she will dress for the whole route rather than only its first stop.
07Booking a Visit to WC2H 7DX
An evening like this falls under Soho hotel visits, whichever floor it begins on. The hotel faces Leicester Square, well inside Zones 1 and 2, close enough that her journey here costs you nothing extra and the address changes nothing on the bill. The house has no arrangement with the hotel and asks for none. It is simply one of the nearest doors, and the booking stays between you and the host.
An hour is £250 and two hours £500, the same figures printed on the rates page for every name on the guest list. She collects her own fee, in person, as the evening begins. A short note naming the night, the hour, the length and the hotel gives the host all she needs, and an answer comes back inside ten to fifteen minutes.
> Ladies from this note sit on the raven haired card, one of the styles the guest list is cut into.
Questions from guests
It faces Leicester Square itself, in WC2H, a short walk south of Soho's busiest streets. For planning purposes it sits comfortably inside a Soho evening.
Yes. Name the bar to the host when booking, and she will be waiting in it at the hour you set, dressed for a hotel lounge rather than a nightclub.
As a general rule, higher floors and rooms facing away from the square. Ask reception at check in, since only the hotel can say what is free that night.