Why you should experience Assembly Leicester Square in London, England.
Assembly Leicester Square is a kinetic design hotel where Leicester Square's cinema culture, Central Saint Martins fashion lineage, West End nightlife and theatrical performance converge inside a modernist tower conceived for guests who intend to spend their waking hours immersed in London.
Set along Charing Cross Road near Cranbourn Street and just steps from Leicester Square, the hotel occupies Alhambra House, a nine-storey concrete-framed building constructed in 1937 alongside Odeon Leicester Square, with its unusual height originally concealing the cinema's former fly tower. The building emerged as part of the same architectural moment that gave Oscar Deutsch's flagship Odeon its Harry Weedon and Andrew Mather design, 2,116-seat auditorium and November 2, 1937 opening with The Prisoner of Zenda. Stride Treglown subsequently converted the former office block into a contemporary hotel while Scott Brownrigg shaped guestrooms through references to Central Saint Martins alumni Stella McCartney, Gareth Pugh and Alexander McQueen. The result is a hotel where Alhambra House, Oscar Deutsch, Scott Brownrigg and three generations of London fashion talent translate Leicester Square's culture of cinema, performance and visual experimentation into hospitality.
What you should know about Assembly Leicester Square.
Assembly Leicester Square is best known for opening in May 2018 as Criterion Capital's first independent hotel, initially launching with 121 bedrooms operated by Bespoke Hotels and a design philosophy built around the property's explicit “Get Up and Go” concept. Criterion Capital, created and led by Asif Aziz, had diversified into hospitality through Criterion Hospitality in 2017 with Victory House before adding Assembly and Hotel Indigo Leicester Square in 2018, establishing a concentrated West End hotel portfolio around the group's extensive Central London holdings. Assembly has since expanded to 139 sound-insulated bedrooms, while Criterion Hospitality now operates the property directly as part of a hotel group whose other concepts include Zedwell, launched with a 721-room Piccadilly Circus flagship in 2020. The original 2018 opening placed guestrooms across nine floors beneath a tenth-floor restaurant and bar level, making vertical separation between sleeping spaces and the West End skyline fundamental to the hotel from its debut. Criterion Capital, Asif Aziz, Bespoke Hotels, Scott Brownrigg, 121 opening bedrooms, the subsequent 139-room configuration and the wider Criterion Hospitality platform collectively trace Assembly's evolution from an experimental independent opening into an established component of a larger West End hospitality portfolio.
Halima Aziz extended that character in June 2025 with Miradora, Criterion Hospitality's tenth-floor reinvention of Assembly's rooftop as what the company introduced as London's first rooftop tequileria, built around a collection of 101 tequilas and panoramic views across Theatreland. Miradora replaced the previous Garden Rooftop concept and developed a Mexican program encompassing tacos, birria quesadillas, churros, Tequila Negronis, mezcal and agave-led cocktails alongside regular live DJ sessions. Criterion Hospitality positioned the opening within the same creative portfolio as Zedwell and 1 Leicester Square Rooftop Bar and Restaurant, connecting Assembly with a broader collection of internally developed West End concepts. Together, Halima Aziz, Miradora, Criterion Hospitality and its 101-tequila collection give Assembly Leicester Square a contemporary character that has continued evolving well beyond the pared-back sleeping concept introduced in 2018.
How to fold Assembly Leicester Square into your trip.
Assembly Leicester Square works as the anchor for an afternoon moving through theater architecture, national painting and British portraiture before returning to Charing Cross Road for the West End after dark.
Begin at London Coliseum, where impresario Oswald Stoll commissioned Frank Matcham to create a theater that opened in 1904 as the largest in Britain, incorporating innovations including lifts carrying audiences to its upper levels and the country's first revolving theatrical stage. Continue to National Gallery, founded in 1824 when the government purchased 38 paintings from banker John Julius Angerstein for £57,000 before William Wilkins's purpose-built Trafalgar Square gallery opened in 1838, giving the afternoon a progression from live performance into a national collection now exceeding 2,300 works. Conclude at National Portrait Gallery, founded in 1856 to collect portraits of significant figures in British history and now holding more than 215,000 portraits, shifting the focus from European painting toward the people who shaped British cultural life. The progression moves from Stoll and Matcham's architecture for mass entertainment through Angerstein and Wilkins's national collection into an institution devoted to British lives, placing Assembly Leicester Square within the concentrated culture of performance, art and image-making surrounding Leicester Square.
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