Two Houses, One Evening: Ham Yard and The Soho Hotel

01Two houses, one design language

Ham Yard Hotel and The Soho Hotel both belong to Firmdale, the small group built around Kit Kemp's interiors, and the family resemblance is obvious within a minute of walking into either lobby. Bold British prints, a serious art collection hung without ceremony, furniture that looks collected rather than ordered from a catalogue. Neither building tries to look like a conventional hotel, which is exactly why both work so well for an evening that is not conventional either.

The two sit close enough to swap between them on foot, Ham Yard tucked off Great Windmill Street near Piccadilly Circus, The Soho Hotel down a mews off Dean Street. Regulars tend to pick one and stay loyal to it, less for the room than for the particular hush each building keeps once the working day ends and the doormen know most of the faces coming through.

For a first booking in Soho, either address removes the guesswork. Staff at both have seen every kind of evening pass through their doors, and neither lobby rewards a loud entrance or punishes a quiet one.

02Arriving at Ham Yard

Ham Yard sits behind its own small square, reached off Great Windmill Street rather than a main road, which already does half the work of keeping an arrival unremarkable. The courtyard beyond the door holds a lawn, a pétanque strip and enough evening trade of its own that one more pair of guests crossing it draws no particular notice.

Nora treats the Dive Bar, the low-lit basement room, as the natural opening move for a Ham Yard evening rather than a detour, a single drink there before going up settling the pace of everything that follows. The rooftop, when the weather allows it, does the same job with a view over the rooftops of W1 instead of a low ceiling.

Lifts run to bedroom floors that keep the same busy prints as downstairs, and corridors are wide enough that passing another guest never feels like an event. Nobody at the desk expects an explanation for who is meeting whom, at Ham Yard least of all.

03The cat in the lobby at The Soho Hotel

The Soho Hotel announces itself with a giant bronze cat by Fernando Botero sitting in the middle of the lobby, an image most people who have ever walked past Richmond Mews will recognise even without knowing the hotel's name. Past the cat, the room opens into Refuel, the hotel's restaurant and bar, low enough in volume most evenings to hold a proper conversation over the first drink.

Karolina prefers The Soho Hotel precisely because the mews it sits on carries almost no passing traffic, foot or otherwise, so the walk from a cab to the door is the quietest few seconds of the whole evening. Screening rooms and a small gym round out a building that behaves more like a private house with excellent staff than a hotel chasing footfall.

Rooms upstairs keep the same eclectic hand as the lobby, no two decorated quite alike, and corridors run long enough that a late arrival barely registers against the rest of the floor's traffic. Suites with a small sitting room set apart from the bed suit a longer evening particularly well, worth asking for if the booking runs to a dinner date rather than a single hour.

04Choosing between them

Ham Yard suits an evening that wants a little life around it first, a drink in the courtyard or the Dive Bar before the room takes over. The Soho Hotel suits the opposite instinct, an evening that wants quiet from the very first step off the pavement, Refuel included only if a proper conversation over a drink appeals more than heading straight up.

Neither is the better choice in any fixed sense. A dinner date that starts with drinks downstairs usually favours Ham Yard's livelier ground floor; an evening booked purely for the room and the company that fills it tends to favour the mews. Both put a companion through exactly the same unremarkable arrival either way.

Weekday evenings tend to favour The Soho Hotel, when Refuel runs quieter and the mews outside stays close to empty by ten. Weekends tip the other way, since Ham Yard's courtyard and the square around it hold enough of their own late trade that one more couple crossing it in the dark barely registers. Neither pattern is fixed, only a habit worth knowing before you pick.

05What we confirm beforehand

Either booking is confirmed the same way any hotel visit through this house is confirmed: your first name to open the message, then your full name, the room number and a short callback over WhatsApp once you are checked in. It happens once, takes minutes, and is never kept beyond the evening it belongs to.

A 25 percent deposit by bank transfer holds a standard hotel evening at either address. Overnights carry a further, non refundable deposit on the travel portion, the same across the house whichever of the two you choose, and the balance settles quietly on arrival.

06Booking a Firmdale evening

A first hour opens from £250 at either house, a dinner date from £900, on the same published rates that apply across the whole portfolio. Message the house on WhatsApp with the date, the hotel you have booked and roughly what time the evening should open, and the reply will confirm what the diary allows.

Same evening requests at both addresses are often possible with a few hours' notice, more if the evening is meant to open downstairs first rather than straight in the room.