Dorset Square Hotel

The acclaimed Dorset Square Hotel sits on the hallowed patch of land where Sir Thomas Lord laid down the world’s first cricket pitch in 1787. While the home of cricket has since moved a mile north to Lord’s Cricket Ground, Dorset Square remains an enchanting sight with its bodyguard of genteel Regency townhouses minding the central arbor.
 
 
 

Paul

The ideal venue for your morning repast is the counter of Paul, the French house of pain founded 117 years ago in Croix in Northern France. Paul’s baskets overflow with millefeuilles, pains au chocolat and other delicious pastries.
 
 
 

Daunt Books

Every world traveler should be familiar with Daunt Books, which the Daily Telegraph has called “the most beautiful bookshop in London—designed for travelers who like reading.” Daunt is an original Edwardian bookshop almost 100 years old.
 
 
 

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square is a true magnum opus. Not only are its walls papered with masterpieces from the past five centuries by Holbein, Reynolds & co., but its rooftop restaurant offers one of London’s greatest visual experiences.
 
 
 

Fortnum & Masons

Fortnum & Mason’s in Piccadilly celebrates its 300th anniversary this year, with the two famous merchants having partnered in 1707. In those three centuries, the celebrated grocers have gathered the finest teas from Darjeeling, Ceylon and Kenya, the richest jams and marmalades from English country gardens, and the most delicate cookies and biscuits from French hearths.
 
 
 

Ritz Hotel

For a soothing cuppa of England’s most elegant tea, take a pot in the finest fashion with afternoon tea at the Ritz in the Palm Court, the hotel’s central atrium, with soaring ceilings, mirrored walls and gilded, rococo excess in every direction.
 
 
 

Seven Stars

Off Chancery Lane in the center of London’s legal community lies the Seven Stars, a public house that was one of the very rare buildings to survive London’s Great Fire of 1666. Opened in 1604—just one year after the death of Elizabeth I and three years before the founding of Jamestown—this pub is more a ship cabin than a tavern, with its bare timbers and creaking low roof.
 
 
 

Rules

Rules Restaurant in Covent Garden is London’s oldest, dating from 1797. The menu is stocked primarily with game hunted and caught on the restaurant’s estate in the north of England: grouse, venison, partridge and more.
 
 
 

The Reform Club

For a nightcap, arrange access through your club to the Reform Club, a magnificent recreation of the Palazzo Farnese executed in 1841 by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. Although the exterior of the club is demure by comparison, the interior is spectacular, with a soaring central courtyard capped by a ceiling of intricate detail, only slightly muted by 170 years of cigar smoke.
 
 
 

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