In east London’s Whitechapel, this converted textile factory weaves a spell with its sensitivity to local culture, design quirks – and Marco Pierre White-devised menu
Everything you need and nothing you don’t. That’s the USP of this new hotel in a former 1950s textile factory in London’s Whitechapel. But that is a little disingenuous: all you really need is a comfortable bed and somewhere to shower. The New Road Hotel actually offers all sorts of things no one really needs but which are cool, surprising or fun.
To anyone unfamiliar with this bit of east London, the walk from the tube is an eye-opener. Whitechapel market feels more like downtown Chittagong, with Bangladeshi women sniffing at the new season’s mangoes and stall holders shouting their wares in Bengali or expertly flipping bubbly parathas on iron tawa griddles. Yet looming over it all is the City of London, with the Gherkin in the foreground.
The best thing is the bed, or rather the two-metre-square sleeping platform that takes up most of the room
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