#20 in Top 20 London for Business · ★★★★★
1 Hotel Mayfair
London's first mission-driven sustainable luxury hotel, a central Mayfair base for the traveller with an ESG mandate.
London's first mission-driven sustainable luxury hotel, a central Mayfair base for the traveller with an ESG mandate.
Independent review. We may earn a commission if you book through our links, at no extra cost to you, and we never accept payment for placement.
Scored on our six-point framework, weighted for a business stay. See our methodology.
Because it pairs a genuinely central Mayfair address with a sustainability story that stands up to scrutiny, which is a rare combination for a corporate stay. It opened in 2023 as the first 1 Hotel in Europe, part of the nature-led brand within Barry Sternlicht's SH Hotels & Resorts, on Berkeley Street between Berkeley Square and Piccadilly. For a traveller in town for meetings, the location does the heavy lifting: Green Park station is about two minutes away on the Piccadilly, Victoria and Jubilee lines, and the West End, St James's, Bond Street and the City are all a short taxi or Tube ride from the door.
The differentiator is that the environmental credentials are built into the fabric rather than bolted on as marketing, which matters if your travel policy carries an ESG mandate. The design leans on natural materials, greenery and daylight, the rooms are calm and tactile, and the whole place is pitched at the executive who wants the Mayfair postcode without the gilded, old-school register of the district's grande dames. It sits at #20 on our London business list, at the newer, greener end of the field rather than the traditional top.
For a working trip, request a suite or a higher-floor room away from Berkeley Street for the quiet. The hotel has 181 rooms and suites, 44 of them suites, and the suites give you the separate seating and desk space that make evening calls and early prep comfortable. Rooms are designed around wellness touches, with filtered water taps, organic bedding and plenty of natural light, which suits a jet-lagged arrival better than a dark city box.
If your schedule is meeting-heavy, ask about the quieter interior-facing rooms rather than those over the street, and confirm a workspace and reliable connectivity at booking. Wellness-minded travellers should note the gym and spa facilities, which are part of the brand's pitch and a genuine asset for anyone trying to keep a routine on the road. Wherever you land, the calm, green-leaning design is the point of difference from a standard business hotel.
Take breakfast or an early meeting at the Dover Yard restaurant before the Mayfair rush, and hold the rooftop bar for a late-afternoon client drink with a view over the district. With Green Park two minutes away, plan cross-London meetings by Tube rather than fighting Mayfair traffic by car.
The address is the hotel's strongest asset for business. From Berkeley Street you are inside Mayfair proper, walking distance to Bond Street's showrooms and the private members' clubs of Mayfair and St James's, with Green Park and the wider Tube network at hand for meetings further out. Dining centres on the Dover Yard restaurant, which leans into seasonal, produce-led cooking in keeping with the brand, while the rooftop bar gives you a relaxed, view-led spot for an informal client drink. It is a hotel that works well for the sort of business that happens over a table rather than in a ballroom.
That said, this is a lifestyle hotel more than a convention one. It is well suited to individual executives, small teams and one-to-one meetings, but it is not built around large conference floors, so a big offsite or a multi-day event is not its natural fit. For the day-to-day of central-London business, though, breakfast meetings, a quiet room to work, a gym session and easy transport, it is a strong, modern base.
What sets 1 Hotel Mayfair apart is that its green claims are concrete. The building is a conversion rather than a new build, and the project retained roughly 80% of the existing structure, which the hotel reports saved on the order of 4,200 tonnes of embodied carbon compared with demolition and rebuilding. Inside, the design uses natural and reclaimed materials, close to 400 square metres of living green walls that help insulate and clean the air, filtered water taps that remove single-use plastic bottles, organic bedding, and occupancy sensors that cut energy use in unused rooms.
For a corporate traveller whose employer tracks the footprint of business travel, those are the kinds of specifics that can be reported rather than just felt, and they are the clearest reason to choose this hotel over a conventional Mayfair five-star. The sustainability is a design decision that runs through the property, not a towel-reuse card, and that authenticity is central to its appeal.
Our counter-recommendation: if you want a grand-hotel business base with a large spa and full-service scale, book Corinthia London, and if you prefer a classic, formal address near Hyde Park Corner, The Lanesborough is the traditional choice. Book 1 Hotel Mayfair when the sustainability credentials and a modern Mayfair base are what you are after.
Within our Top 20 Hotels in London for Business it ranks #20 with an aggregate editorial score of 9.6 out of 10. It leads on sustainability and modern design; the traditional names around it lead on grand-hotel scale, formal service and conference capacity. For the full field, see the London business ranking.
| Hotel | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Hotel Mayfair | Sustainability-led modern base in central Mayfair | No large conference floors; premium rate |
| Corinthia London | Grand-hotel scale with a large spa near Whitehall | More traditional and less green-led |
| The Lanesborough | Classic, formal London address at Hyde Park Corner | Traditional register, not a modern lifestyle feel |
Yes, especially for travellers who want a central Mayfair address with a sustainability story to match a company ESG mandate. It is on Berkeley Street, two minutes from Green Park station on the Piccadilly, Victoria and Jubilee lines, with a restaurant, rooftop bar, gym and quiet rooms suited to working. It ranks #20 on our London business list.
It opened in 2023 as the first 1 Hotel in Europe, from the sustainability-focused brand within SH Hotels & Resorts. It has 181 rooms and suites, including 44 suites, spread across a converted Mayfair building rather than a new tower.
The conversion retained around 80% of the existing building structure, saving roughly 4,200 tonnes of embodied carbon, and the hotel uses natural and reclaimed materials, living green walls, filtered water taps in place of plastic bottles, organic bedding and occupancy sensors that cut room energy use. Sustainability is built into the design rather than added as a label.
It sits on Berkeley Street in Mayfair, between Berkeley Square and Piccadilly, about a two-minute walk from Green Park station. That puts the West End, St James's and the City within an easy taxi or Tube ride, which is why it works for meetings across central London.
A ranked shortlist, a special offer worth booking, and the overpriced stay to skip. Straight from the editors.