€284.70 for 1 Night
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The Capital
€284.70/ Night
24/7 Support
Looking for help choosing or for a property we don't list? Message our Private Rates Concierge on WhatsApp for member rates and insider knowledge on the right stay
A pioneering small five-star boutique hotel on a quiet Knightsbridge street, seconds from Harrods, with apartments, a townhouse and an acclaimed seafood restaurant.
Collection:
Need To Know
- 41 rooms and 8 suites, plus serviced apartments and an adjoining 12-room townhouse
- A quiet Knightsbridge address, a few steps from Harrods and Hyde Park
- Tom Brown at The Capital: produce-driven modern British seafood
- The Capital Bar for cocktails; a traditional British afternoon tea
- Serviced apartments with kitchens for longer stays; an adjoining townhouse
- Two private event rooms for meetings and small celebrations of up to 24
- Spa treatments via the hotel's La Prairie partnership at Harrods
Check in - Check out
Check in from 14:00; check out before 12:00.
We Love
- The location — a quiet residential street in the heart of Knightsbridge, a few steps from Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Sloane Street, with Hyde Park just over the road.
- The pedigree — opened in 1971 as a 'grand hotel in miniature', the property helped invent the British boutique hotel and still keeps that small, personal feel.
- The restaurant — Tom Brown at The Capital brings produce-driven modern British seafood to Knightsbridge, one of the most talked-about openings in recent London dining.
- The rooms — individually designed in refined English style, with original art and bespoke furniture; suites and serviced apartments suit longer and family stays.
- The townhouse — a self-contained house of twelve rooms with its own lobby, available alongside the hotel for exclusive family or group stays.
Key Features
Book Your Stay at The Capital
€284.70 for 1 Night
Location
Address
22-24 Basil Street, Knightsbridge, London, SW3 1AT
Travel Info
The Capital stands on Basil Street in the heart of Knightsbridge, steps from Harrods and Knightsbridge Underground station, with Hyde Park across the road. Heathrow is about 45 minutes by Tube; a small private car park is available.
Nearby Places
45 minutes from Heathrow airport on the underground, 15 minutes from St Pancras Station Eurostar Terminal
250m
Last Updated: 2026-06-18
Expert Review
Origins
The Capital is, in a real sense, where the British boutique hotel began. In 1971 the hospitality pioneer David Levin — who had earlier created one of Britain's first gastropubs — opened a discreet five-star hotel on a quiet Knightsbridge side street and set out to do something then unheard of: run a five-star hotel at the scale of a private house. He called it a 'grand hotel in miniature', and it became the template that countless boutique properties in Britain and beyond would follow.
More than fifty years on, that founding idea still defines the place. Behind a discreet classical facade on Basil Street, a few steps from Harrods, the hotel holds just over forty rooms and a handful of suites, each individually designed in an understated English style with original art and bespoke furniture. Alongside them sit serviced apartments with their own kitchens, for longer and family stays, and an adjoining townhouse of twelve rooms with its own private lobby that can be taken in full — the kind of flexibility almost no hotel of this size in central London can offer.
Food has always mattered here, and it still does. The hotel's restaurant, Tom Brown at The Capital, has quickly become one of the most talked-about tables in Knightsbridge, serving produce-driven modern British seafood from a chef who trained with some of the country's best; the Capital Bar mixes cocktails in burnished brass and velvet, and the afternoon tea, with its warm scones and salmon crumpets, is a Knightsbridge institution in itself. With Harrods and Harvey Nichols around the corner, Hyde Park across the road and the museums of South Kensington a short walk away, the location is as good as London addresses get — and the hotel remains, as it began, small, personal and quietly assured.
Top Secret
Take the lift up and the noise of Knightsbridge simply falls away — the rooms are remarkably quiet for so central a spot, with fresh fruit and treats waiting to see you through to teatime. The afternoon tea is the thing to book: scones still warm from the oven, thick cream and good jam, and the kitchen's own twists like salmon crumpets. Hyde Park is a two-minute walk for a pre-dinner stroll, and the serviced apartments and townhouse make this a rare central-London base for families and longer stays.
The Review
The Capital is one of London's original boutique hotels, and more than half a century on it still makes the case for small. Opened in 1971 as a 'grand hotel in miniature', it sits on a quiet residential street in the very heart of Knightsbridge — a few steps from Harrods and Harvey Nichols, Hyde Park across the road, the South Kensington museums a short walk off — yet feels worlds removed from the crowds the moment the door closes behind you.
Inside it trades grandeur for intimacy. Just over forty rooms and a handful of suites are individually designed in an unshowy English style, with original art and bespoke pieces; serviced apartments with kitchens and an adjoining twelve-room townhouse give it a flexibility for families and longer stays that its grand Knightsbridge neighbours cannot match. Service is the old-school, deeply personal kind that a hotel this size can still deliver — concierge who know you by name, a personal shopper for Harrods on call. The restaurant, Tom Brown at The Capital, has made the dining room a destination in its own right with some of the most assured modern British seafood in London.
It will suit those who want the address and the polish of five-star Knightsbridge without the scale and anonymity of the palace hotels — couples, shoppers, museum-goers and families after a serviced apartment in the best of postcodes. It is not cheap, and it is not flashy; what it offers instead is location, pedigree and a genuinely personal stay. As the hotel that helped write the boutique template in the first place, it remains very hard to beat on its own terms.
