San Domenico House Hotel, Chelsea and Knightsbridge London

"The location of the 15-room San Domenico House, the reincarnation of the former Sloane Hotel on Draycott Place, couldn’t be better for exploring Chelsea’s history and upscale shopping. Shoehorned inside a couple of substantial redbrick nineteenth century houses, the hotel layout is a warren of staircases and landings supplemented by a tiny elevator. Lavishly furnished with late-18th and 19th century paintings and antiques, the cozy interior lends the illusion of being in a quirky private London house instead of the ubiquitous no-place of global Hotel Land. However the thick scent of candles floating upstairs from reception strikes an off note as do occasional stumbles in the decorating: What could that homage to Napoleon be doing in a London drawing room? The heated towel rail in the gleaming bathroom may not work, but the bedroom lighting is perfection, the continental breakfast is as good as in Milan, and the Italian staff is not only charming and attentive but dazzlingly handsome."