If Soho House build it then they’ll come. The openings in Berlin and Miami may have confirmed it once and for all, but it arguably all started with Shoreditch Rooms. Why so crashingly popular? Because, from the in-house bowling alley to the nifty ‘Borrow Me’ boxes that contain everything from board games to dressing up accessories and classic paperbacks, it’s a hotel with a sense of fun – more kids’ tree house than old-fashioned members’ clubhouse.
The rooms themselves (just 26 of them in total) now fill a couple of floors next door to the original club’s former biscuit factory warehouse building. The rooms come according to size category – ‘Tiny’ rooms are not particularly tiny, but they are particularly good value. All have a Cape Cod-cum-cabana-style feel of white-painted boarding, Venetian blinds, cosy-chic tartan rugs on the beds, and Cowshed goodies in the bathrooms.
If you came just to lay your head down in the room for the night, the siren call of Shoreditch House will have lured you out of there before you know it. Because if one of the bars or the restaurant doesn’t get its hooks into you, the roof terrace – and especially the rooftop pool surrounded with loungers and pastel-coloured daybeds – almost certainly will.
What’s hot?
- The rooftop pool – perfect for SATC-style summer afternoons of sunning yourself
- The affordable food
- Rubbing shoulders with the super-cool clientele
What’s not?
- A bout of light-fingeredness with the room's Cowshed smellies will end up on the bill
Need to Know: Shoreditch Rooms
Number of rooms: 26
Check-in/check-out times: 3pm and 12noon
Room service: Yes. Breakfast can be brought up to the room
Swimming pool: Yes. There’s a rooftop pool
Spa: Yes. There’s a Cowshed Spa onsite offering the signature facials and other fabulous treatments
Dogs welcome: No
Eating and drinking: As with all the houses, the food is reasonable and, though pretty simple (very upmarket Italian pizza 'n' pasta fodder for the most part) is excellent. Drinks – which can be taken over a game of bowls, in the Square Bar, slouched on sofas surveying the scene in the Sitting Room, or up on the roof terrace – are served till late (on weekends there’s a DJ). If you really have to go out for a bite, Pizza East on the corner is a good bet.
Near to? The really trendy part of the East End has long since slunk off further eastwards, but there’s still plenty of things to keep you busy in the immediate surroundings. Sundays, in particular, can be spent buzzing between nearby Columbia Road, Spitalfields and Brick Lane sifting through the flowers, fashion and assorted junk.
Getting there: Liverpool Street Tube station is around a five-minute walk away, from where the Stansted Express can whisk you out to Stansted Airport in around 40 minutes.
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