Richard Branson to open his first ever London hotel in Shoreditch

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson is to open his first London hotel more than 50 years after he started his long business career in the capital. While Britain’s most famous entrepreneur has run record stores, nightclubs and a restaurant in London he has never before had a hotel in the city of his birth. The 120 room hotel will open in August in Shoreditch becoming the eighth Virgin Hotels location in the UK and the 17th globally in the Virgin Hotels Collection which includes Necker Island, and the Ulusaba game reserve in South Africa. The hotel is at 45 Curtain Road in the heart of the East End and currently operates as the Mondrian Shoreditch. It will be rebadged the Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch from 1 August, followed by a “gradual transformation to transition the hotel to a fully-fledged Virgin hotel”. Facilities will include Spanish restaurant BiBo, rooftop bar, pool, private members club, gym, and treatment rooms, managed Ibiza’s Blue Marlin There are no details yet on room rates. Sir Richard said: “We’re all absolutely delighted that Virgin Hotels Collection will be opening a Virgin hotel in London. Since the inception of Virgin Hotels, we’ve had our sights set on London; a place that so many of our customers either call home, or name as one of their favourite destinations – and of course where Virgin’s story started. “At Virgin, we’ve been disrupting the travel industry for more than 40 years, from land to air to sea – even to space. Our success comes from identifying where we can make a difference. “Virgin Atlantic customers have always said to me that we give them a wonderful experience in the sky, but they don’t have the same Virgin experience when they land. Well, we’ve sorted that in Las Vegas, New York, Edinburgh and now London too.”