The Standard Hotel, London

The Standard is one of New York City’s most infamous hotels, boasting no less than three sky high bars. Perhaps you’ve heard rumours about (or witnessed from afar) couples enjoying a romantic moment close to the window of their hotel room, unaware they’re visible to the whole of the city's Meatpacking district. You might have even sipped a cocktail at the Top of the Standard bar or the Boom Boom Room yourself. Now, the party-loving establishment – the first branch of which was launched in West Hollywood in the late 90s – has opened a London outpost, moving into a former Camden Council office block by King’s Cross station.

The London opening is the group’s first outside of the US, where branches can also be found in LA and Miami. The London branch boasts 266 rooms, ranging from singles for as little as £150 a night to luxe suits for over £1,000 that boast bathtubs on the terraces. The ninth and 10th floors, opening in the autumn, are two-storey townhouses. But even if you’re not a hotel guest, you’ll be able to ride the brazen red lift up to the hotel’s top-floor cocktail club.

The Standard Hotel's ground floor restaurant Isla

The Standard’s interiors have been designed by Shawn Hausman Design, the company behind all Standard properties. Rather than shying away from brutalist architecture that forms the hotel’s shell, Hausman and interior architect Archer Humphryes have embraced it, kitting the communal areas out with geometric shapes and bold colours, while bedrooms have retained the ship-like, softly-rounded windows. There’s also a ground floor library in honour of the building’s former life, where an in-house librarian oversees a well-thumbed collection of books spanning 28 subject matters.

Double Standard, the hotel bar neighbouring Isla restaurant

The hotel's executive chef Adam Rawson, who trained under Nuno Mendes and was previously the head chef of Marylebone’s Peruvian-inspired Pachamama, heads up the two ground-floor restaurants: Isla, where a colourful, fresh-from-the-garden menu is served both indoors and outside in a foliage-adorned garden; and Double Standard, an American-dive-bar-meets-British-pub space where Rawson’s show-stopping burgers are the dish of the day. Not a patty fan? Come here anyway to sip on classic cocktails and craft beers, while relishing in the pastel tiles and rounded furnishings of this stylish, design-led space.

Later in the year, Michelin-starred, Briston-based chef Peter Sanchez-Iglesias is opening a second restaurant and bar, and further stand-alone bar, on the 10th floor of the hotel, where a club fit to rival that of its New York sibling will entertain guests and members of the public into the early hours of the morning. We’ll raise a Manhattan to that.

The Standard Hotel is now open