New Wallpaper City Guide to London
New London guidebook brings the Wallpaper style to travel guides
Style mag Wallpaper also publishes guides to the world's great cities. The minimalist London guide is the opposite of Rough Guides, but perfect for the stylish traveler
Love it or hate it, the magazine Wallpaper has an approach all its own – dealing as it does with style and design, whether it comes to architecture, the arts or travel. For some it's too style-conscious, for others it's refreshing and different. Its travel guides to the world's great cities are certainly different, and the Wallpaper City Guide to London is no exception.
Wallpaper City Guides don't compete with the comprehensive city guides published by people like Rough Guides, Lonely Planet and Time Out. Wallpaper City Guides are slim volumes, little more than 100 pages, and pocket-sized. The London guide, for example, only includes ten London hotels in its listings. But they are ten exceptionally stylish hotels, and each has at least two color photos and a good description. One look at the spread on The Zetter (winner of a recent award for London's Best Small Hotel) and I wanted to stay there immediately. Other recommended hotels include the chic Halkin, The Soho Hotel (with the biggest four-poster bed in London) and the architecturally stunning One Aldwych.
The Wallpaper City Guide to London covers restaurants, bars and cafes in the same select way, and there are other sections (you hesitate to call them chapters) on sports, shopping, architectural landmarks and nearby escapes. The choices are sometimes eccentric but always interesting. Does any other guidebook include The Trellick Tower in Golborne Road as a landmark, alongside the likes of Tate Modern and the 'Erotic Gherkin'?
The Sports and Spas section is limited to just four entries: Lord's Cricket Ground, the new Wembley Stadium, the Laban Dance Center in Deptford and Matt Roberts Personal Training ('personal trainer to the stars'). It is again an interesting and offbeat selection.
The Wallpaper City Guides make you think again about the cities they cover, and in a sense are for people who already live in the cities, not just for visitors. If you're thinking of visiting London, then you'll need one of the bigger guides like the Rough Guide, but the Wallpaper City Guide to London will slip right in alongside it and give you a fresh perspective on where to stay, where to eat ad where to go in the place it describes in the Introduction as 'the most thrilling of places... a vital global city, an international focal point for art and commerce.'
The Wallpaper City Guide to London is published by Phaidon at £4.95 in the UK and $8.95 in the USA.
