Why you should experience Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster in London, England.
Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster is an enigmatic contemporary hotel where Westminster's political authority, intelligence culture, modern architecture and riverside institutional character converge within a purpose-built hotel beside Millbank.
Set along John Islip Street near Millbank and just steps from Tate Britain, the building was completed in 2003 for City Inn Group as its flagship London property, with Bennetts Associates designing what was then the largest new-build hotel completed in Central London for more than 30 years. Founders Sandy Orr and David Orr commissioned architect Rab Bennetts to give the £35 million project a distinctly architectural identity, placing 460 rooms behind a sharply composed modern façade while incorporating a 14th-floor sky lounge overlooking Westminster. City Inn also collaborated with Chelsea College of Art on changing artworks throughout the building, while artist Susanna Heron created The Reflecting Wall with Bennetts Associates as part of the original architectural composition. The result is a hotel where Sandy Orr, David Orr, Rab Bennetts, Chelsea College of Art and Susanna Heron give Westminster's institutional landscape a hospitality address rooted in architecture and contemporary art.
What you should know about Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster.
Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster is best known for opening as City Inn Westminster in September 2003 with 460 rooms after Bennetts Associates completed the £35 million flagship for Sandy and David Orr's City Inn Group, becoming Central London's largest new-build hotel in more than three decades before winning the 2005 Catey for Group Hotel of the Year in a decision described by judge Andrew McKenzie as a vote for design. The property subsequently passed through the Mint Hotel Westminster and DoubleTree by Hilton London Westminster identities before a multimillion-pound transformation introduced The Westminster London within Curio Collection by Hilton in 2021, expanding the operating character around 464 individually designed rooms and an espionage-inspired visual language informed by neighboring MI5 and MI6. AFK designed the guestrooms during that chapter, while STK Steakhouse, Bao Yum and a private bowling concept established a markedly different hospitality program from the original City Inn. RIU Hotels & Resorts assumed control at 12:01 a.m. on January 8, 2026, immediately converting the property into its second London hotel and thirteenth RIU Plaza city property after the 2023 opening of Riu Plaza London Victoria. The sequence from Bennetts Associates and the Orr family through Mint Hotels, Hilton's Curio Collection and RIU Hotels & Resorts gives the building an unusually concentrated record of London hotel evolution across only 23 years.
Luis Riu supplies the central authorship of the newest chapter, having personally described the Westminster acquisition as the successful outcome of RIU's search for a second London property after the company rejected two other opportunities around Soho. RIU had entered the British market only in July 2023 with Riu Plaza London Victoria, and the performance of that property encouraged the Mallorcan hotel group to establish a second London address within fifteen minutes of the first. The Westminster acquisition also carries forward the espionage narrative created during the Curio Collection era, preserving references to Britain's intelligence services within an address positioned between MI5's Thames House and the riverfront institutional landscape extending toward MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. Luis Riu's expansion strategy connects the Orr family's early twenty-first-century architectural experiment, Rab Bennetts's original design, Hilton's espionage-inflected reinvention and RIU's rapidly expanding urban portfolio within the same John Islip Street property.
How to fold Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster into your trip.
Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing British art, royal ceremony and wartime statecraft through Westminster.
Begin at Tate Britain, where sugar magnate Sir Henry Tate funded the National Gallery of British Art on the former Millbank Prison site, with Sidney R. J. Smith designing the building opened in 1897 before James Stirling added the Clore Gallery in 1987 and the institution adopted the Tate Britain name in 2000. Continue to Westminster Abbey, where William the Conqueror became the first securely documented monarch crowned in the church on Christmas Day 1066 and Henry III began rebuilding Edward the Confessor's abbey in the Gothic style in 1245, creating the architectural core that has framed Britain's coronation tradition for centuries. Conclude at Churchill War Rooms, entering the subterranean command environment associated with Winston Churchill and Britain's Second World War leadership beneath Westminster. The progression moves from Sir Henry Tate and Sidney R. J. Smith's national collection through William the Conqueror and Henry III's royal church into Churchill's wartime command world, revealing the exceptional concentration of art, monarchy and political power surrounding Hotel Riu Plaza London The Westminster.
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