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The last few times I’ve been to London, I always seem to be drawn to Shoreditch although I’ve never actually stayed the night there.

We were invited to an event with Sainsburys as part of their Taste Maker project recently, which happened to be taking place in Shoreditch. So we thought we would make a weekend of it and spend the evening at one of the areas endless supply of uber trendy hotels.

After a bit of searching, we came across The Curtain. The other half always insists on a pool when staying anywhere but London being so bloody expensive per square meter, not many hotels offer them. The Curtain however had a cool little rooftop pool. Now that’s something you don’t get everyday in London, so we snapped it straight up.

 

 

The hotel also had its own nightclub, rooftop bar and terrace, private members club, gym and fried chicken restaurant too – you really didn’t have to leave the 4 walls. We wondered why there was a huge queue down the street the day of checkout too. Turns out Little Mix were performing in the onsite club that afternoon.

The Rooms

Me in bed at The Curtain Hotel Shoreditch - London

 

I usually end up booking hotels through comparison sites, as you can usually get a better deal but the Curtain website had a few offers on, that seemed to trump anything else I could find. Ok so the suite’s were a little out of our budget but we ended up upgrading from the basic room to a City Room with breakfast and a bottle of bubbly in the room for around £250.

The rooms are not massive by any stretch of the imagination, but this is London after all. It certainly wasn’t the smallest room either and I thought the space was just right for what we needed for a single night. The bed was pretty big to be fair and so comfortable.

I loved the decor of the room – gold, dark green with little touches such as the Marshall radio, minibar trolley with some pretty decent selections of spirits in half bottles from East London Liquor Company Gin to Lagauvlin 16 year old whisky. Ok so you had to pay for them, but they beat the standard mini bottles of Gordon’s gin and Bells Whisky and probably worked out a lot cheaper if you were planning on sinking a few in the room.

We had our bottle of champagne chilling on ice ready for us too, which was a nice touch. I’d heard that in the evening a trolley comes around making martini’s for guests but we were in and out in the evening so missed it.

We each had robes and slippers in the room, which were handy for travelling between the room and the rooftop pool or just chucking on after falling asleep in the very spacious steam shower in the room. The toiletries smelt lush too.

The Rooftop Pool

You wouldn’t get any Olympic athletes practicing their lengths in the rooftop pool as it wasn’t the biggest but I just like being in the water and not bothered about breaking much of a sweat after a night on the beer anyway. It was March with a bitterly wind but we were adamant we were going to use the pool before breakfast.

The hotel is nowhere near the height of the Shard so you don’t get breathtaking views on your morning swim in 5C but at 6 stories, you do get to peer over a number of neighboroughing buildings. There’s quite a lot of development going on in Shoreditch, especially the couple of building’s near the hotel so it could get quite entombed in the near future, but I enjoyed our brief trip into the water.

 

 

One thing that was quite annoying was you had to go through the terrace bar, which also hosted breakfast, to get into the outside pool area in our swimwear and gowns. It’s a shame there wasn’t a side entrance just before coming into the breakfast area.

In the evening the terrace room turns into a bar, serving up cocktails till just after 10pm. I actually remember walking past the building last December not knowing it was a hotel. There seemed to be a party going on, with little white garden lights glowing in the winter chill. Unfortunately we didn’t get back from the event till late, so we didn’t end up making it onto the terrace bar for a drink.

We took our towels from our room to the pool but there’s no need, as you can pick one up from the counter up there but I’d take your bath robe. especially if it’s in March like us.

The Breakfast

Breakfast wasn’t offered to all guests as standard but we had it in our package. The Curtain also allowed non patrons of the hotel to dine for breakfast too, with a choice of continental, full English or other standard numbers with avo and eggs.

The complimentary breakfast included both continental and a hot food choice. I opted for the full English as standard, then hit the continental hard to line the stomach for a day on the beers as it happened to be the final weekend of the 6 Nations. You know, that one where we (Wales) won the grand slam…again.

 

 

The breakfast was excellent, I’ll give them that. A choice of cheese, freshly baked breads and pastries and the cured meats were epic. None of that laser cut 90% water ham, this was thick cut proper charcuterie. Probably the best i’ve had at a hotel breakfast. There was plenty of fresh fruits, a selection of yogurts, milks for all tolerances to go with your cereals too.

The full English was a very good example of a cooked breakfast too. Thick cut bacon, tasty sausages, runny eggs and the black pudding was cooked just how it should be.

I obviously had a Bloody Mary to sip on with my breakfast.

 

Me having a breakfast cocktail at The Curtain Shoreditch - London

 

The Verdict

I loved our stay at The Curtain and would definitely go back. The room was lush and the steam shower was epic.

First class breakfast and great to be able to do a few breast strokes pre-breakfast to make room for more of the buffet items.

The gym looked pretty well stocked and I’m gutted we didn’t have time to check out the rooftop terrace at night. The Bloody Mary I had up there for breakfast we pretty good though.

Contact Details

The Curtain Hotel
45 Curtain Road
Shoreditch
London
EC2A 3PT

www.thecurtain.com