Why you should experience Raffles London at The OWO in London, England.
Raffles London at The OWO is a commanding heritage hotel where Whitehall's political power, military history, intelligence culture and Edwardian architectural ambition converge within the former War Office.
Set along Whitehall near Horse Guards Avenue and just steps from Horse Guards, the hotel occupies William Young's Baroque War Office, completed in 1906 on ground formerly belonging to the Palace of Whitehall, the principal royal residence associated with monarchs including Henry VIII. Young created an immense government headquarters containing more than 1,000 rooms connected by two and a half miles of corridors, establishing the physical setting through which figures including Lord Haldane, Winston Churchill and T. E. Lawrence later moved. The building subsequently became entwined with British intelligence culture and Ian Fleming's fictional world of James Bond, while several Bond films returned to the former government complex as a cinematic setting. The result is a hotel where William Young, Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence and Ian Fleming concentrate Whitehall's architecture of government, warfare and espionage within one of London's most historically charged hospitality conversions.
What you should know about Raffles London at The OWO.
Raffles London at The OWO is best known for opening on September 29, 2023 after the Hinduja Group and ONEX took possession of the former Old War Office in 2016 and undertook an eight-year restoration that converted the Grade II building into Raffles Hotels & Resorts' first London property. The completed development contains 120 rooms and suites designed by Thierry Despont alongside 85 OWO Residences by Raffles designed by 1508 London, with EPR Architects directing the architectural transformation and thousands of craftspeople contributing to the restoration. Despont's hotel interiors extend through historically significant suites occupying spaces once associated with senior political and military figures, while the wider development introduced nine restaurants and three bars into the former government complex. Goddard Littlefair designed the Guerlain Spa, and the Whitehall Ballroom occupies 678 square metres within an events program that also includes the 425-square-metre Lawrence, 94-square-metre Morse and 89-square-metre Code rooms. The Hinduja Group, ONEX, Thierry Despont, 1508 London, EPR Architects, Raffles and Guerlain collectively turned a building closed to the public for more than a century into one of the most substantial London hotel openings of the twenty-first century.
Chef Mauro Colagreco gives the hotel another layer of international authorship through three culinary concepts, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London at The OWO, Mauro's Table and Saison, following a career crowned by three MICHELIN stars at Mirazur in Menton and Mirazur's first-place finish in The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2019. UNESCO appointed Colagreco its first Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity, a philosophy expressed in London through British organic produce sourced from farms, fields and shores and through menus structured around seasonality and agricultural provenance. Head Chef Leonel Aguirre Tobia arrived after experience at Tegui in Buenos Aires, Mirazur and One&Only Royal Mirage's Beach Bar & Grill by Mauro Colagreco in Dubai, extending Colagreco's culinary network directly into Whitehall. Wine director Vincenzo Arnese adds another formidable pedigree after serving as head sommelier for Heston Blumenthal and at Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, winning UK Best Sommelier in 2015 and Taittinger UK Sommelier of the Year in 2022 before joining Raffles London in 2023. Together, Mauro Colagreco, Leonel Aguirre Tobia, Vincenzo Arnese, Mirazur and UNESCO give Raffles London at The OWO a contemporary gastronomic character carrying the same density of individual authorship as its architecture.
How to fold Raffles London at The OWO into your trip.
Raffles London at The OWO works as the anchor for an afternoon tracing royal ceremony, political authority and wartime command through Whitehall.
Begin at Banqueting House, where Inigo Jones introduced a revolutionary Palladian language to Stuart England in the surviving component of the Palace of Whitehall, with Peter Paul Rubens's ceiling paintings later transforming the hall into an extraordinary union of royal architecture and dynastic imagery. Continue to Churchill War Rooms, where Britain's wartime leadership operated from the underground Cabinet War Rooms beneath Westminster and Winston Churchill chaired meetings as the Second World War reshaped the political machinery surrounding Whitehall. Conclude at National Gallery, founded in 1824 after Parliament purchased 38 paintings from banker John Julius Angerstein and subsequently established in William Wilkins's Trafalgar Square building, carrying the progression from royal patronage and wartime government into Britain's national collection of European painting. The sequence moves from Inigo Jones and Rubens's Stuart court through Churchill's subterranean command center into Angerstein and Wilkins's national institution, revealing the concentration of political and cultural authority surrounding Raffles London at The OWO.
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