Z Hotel Covent Garden

The historic building near St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden has been adapted to fit Z Hotels’ standard format, with small modern rooms designed for short stays. As part of a small, but growing, UK-wide chain, the Covent Garden branch maintains a consistent look and feel with its other locations.

The hotel contains 113 air-conditioned rooms spread across five floors, accessed by stairs or lift. All rooms include a flatscreen television, a compact work desk, tea-and-coffee-making facilities and en suite bathrooms. The décor is modern and minimal, although some of the smaller rooms have no windows. Rooms range from 8m² (86 sq ft) to 14m² (150 sq ft).

A small café/bar area near the reception desk serves as the breakfast room and informal lounge space. While this area lacks the charm of other places to eat and drink nearby, it is a nice spot to enjoy cheese and a glass of wine in the evening or a light breakfast in the morning.

Breakfast is available for an extra charge and includes a cold buffet selection of pastries, fruit, yoghurt and cereal, along with coffee and tea.

It’s worth signing up for the Z Hotels’ loyalty programme if you’re planning on staying here as members are eligible for loads of benefits including complimentary tea and coffee from the ground-floor cafe, complimentary cheese and wine in the evening and room upgrades. You get these benefits from day one, which is an excellent deal considering that many other hotel loyalty programmes won’t give you benefits like this until you have stayed 10–25 nights.

The hotel has an unbeatable location in Covent Garden, a busy commercial and entertainment area in London’s West End. The immediate surroundings are lively, with theatres, restaurants and late-night bars creating a bustling atmosphere throughout the day and into the evening. It is not a quiet location, and, although the hotel has soundproofing, some street noise may still be noticeable, especially in rooms facing Bedford Street.

Covent Garden and Leicester Square tube stations are both a four-minute walk away and it is only a six-minute walk to Charing Cross railway (and tube) station.

There is a lot to see and do in the immediate vicinity around the hotel with Covent Garden Market and the London Transport Museum within a five-minute walk and Leicester Square, Neal’s Yard, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, St Martins-in-the-Fields and Trafalgar Square are all no more than a 10-minute walk from the hotel.