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Number 2 of 20 in London

The Savoy

Richard D'Oyly Carte built the Savoy next to his theatre, hired César Ritz to manage it and Auguste Escoffier to cook, and gave London its first modern hotel. Monet painted the river from one of its windows.

Class
Five-star hotel
Opened
1889
Rooms
267 rooms and suites
Area
The Strand, on the Thames

London this week

    What sets The Savoy apart

    1. The American Bar

      The oldest surviving cocktail bar in Britain. Its barman Harry Craddock wrote The Savoy Cocktail Book here in 1930, and it is still in print.

    2. The river front

      The hotel has two faces: an Art Deco one on the Strand and an Edwardian one on the Thames. Claude Monet took rooms on the river side between 1899 and 1901 and painted Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge in the fog from them.

    3. Savoy Court

      The short street to the front door is the one place in Britain where traffic drives on the right, a custom that goes back to the days of horse cabs at the theatre door.

    4. Kaspar

      A black wooden cat, carved in 1927, who is sat at any table of thirteen to make a fourteenth.

    What it has

    • American Bar
    • Thames Foyer afternoon tea
    • Savoy Grill
    • Swimming pool
    • Savoy Theatre next door

    Where The Savoy is

    Address

    Strand
    London WC2R 0EZ, United Kingdom

    Nearest Tube

    Charing Cross, on the Bakerloo and Northern lines, or Covent Garden on the Piccadilly line

    Museums and sights nearby

    Distances are in a straight line from the hotel.

    Built on operetta

    D'Oyly Carte opened the hotel on 6 August 1889. It had electric light throughout, electric lifts and a bathroom for most rooms, when the grandest hotel in London offered four bathrooms for five hundred guests.

    The hotel closed for nearly three years from 2007 for a complete restoration and reopened in 2010. It is managed by Fairmont.

    The Savoy: common questions

    Where is The Savoy?
    At Strand, in Covent Garden, London. The nearest Tube station is Charing Cross, on the Bakerloo and Northern lines, or Covent Garden on the Piccadilly line.
    Which museums and sights are near The Savoy?
    The National Gallery is 550 m away, London Eye is 750 m away, The British Museum is 1.1 km away. Distances are in a straight line from the hotel.
    Does The Savoy have a swimming pool?
    Yes. It has a swimming pool with a jet stream, under a glass roof above the Savoy Theatre.
    When did The Savoy open?
    In 1889. It has 267 rooms and suites.

    What visitors say about The Savoy

    Rating from Google

    4.7

    11,103 ratings on Google

    Google's figures as read on 8 October 2026.

    Read every review on Google

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