Look, I’ll be honest – when I first walked up to La Suite West on Inverness Terrace, I wasn’t expecting much. The street itself is one of those classic London rows where the white Georgian facades all blend together, but once you step inside, it’s actually quite nice. The lobby has this boutique hotel vibe going on, not trying too hard to be fancy but definitely a step up from your typical chain place.
What really sold me on this spot though is the location – I mean, you’re literally a two-minute walk from Hyde Park, which sounds touristy but honestly makes all the difference when you want to escape London’s intensity for a bit. The Bayswater tube station is right there on Queensway, so you can get anywhere in the city pretty easily. And here’s something most people don’t realize: you’re also walking distance to Notting Hill without having to pay Notting Hill hotel prices. The area gets a bit bustling during the day with all the tourist traffic heading to the park, but it actually quiets down nicely in the evenings.
The rooms themselves are what you’d expect from a solid 4-star place – nothing groundbreaking, but they’ve clearly put some thought into the design. The beds are actually comfortable (not always a given in London hotels, you know?), and the bathrooms are properly sized, which… well, if you’ve stayed in many London hotels, you’ll appreciate that. I did notice some street noise in the morning – Inverness Terrace gets its share of traffic and there’s often construction somewhere nearby because, well, it’s London – but nothing that kept me awake. The staff at check-in were genuinely helpful too, not just going through the motions. They gave me proper directions to places instead of just pointing vaguely down the street.
What I really liked was how the hotel feels connected to the neighborhood rather than isolated from it. There’s a decent Lebanese place called Maroush just around the corner on Edgware Road, and if you walk five minutes toward Paddington, you hit that whole Connaught Village area which has some surprisingly good cafes and shops that most tourists never find. The hotel doesn’t have parking (barely any London hotels do unless you want to pay through the nose), but honestly, you don’t need a car here anyway. The 7.9 rating seems about right – it’s not going to blow your mind, but it does what it promises without any major disappointments. For the price point and location, especially if you want to be near Hyde Park without staying in some massive impersonal place, La Suite West actually works quite well.