Middle Eight, London’s new immersive hotel.

You know the middle eight of a song. Those eight bars, in the middle of a pop song (literal is totally underrated), where it goes up a bit, or down a bit, sometimes to the side, and it’s normally catchier than Covid at a Cheltenham racecourse. Anyway, who doesn’t love a middle eight.

Shiva – fancy hotel brand, they know their luxury schizz – have gone and named their latest hotel after said moreish musical bridge, and plonked it in Covent Garden, Great Queen Street to be precise. And to continue the pop motif, Middle Eight is dead-set on offering something different – changing the tempo, if you will – in this buzzy central London ‘hood, while still remaining very much a part of it.

They’re calling it an immersive hotel – there’s a cabaret bar, which had us at ‘cabaret’. And then ‘bar’ – and it’s coming at you with 168 rooms, 12 suites, two all-day restaurants, a residents-only hi-spec gym, and that cabaret bar we mentioned is called QT, which will be a destination in itself, hosting comedians, singers, musicians, scholars, acrobats. And it’s all brought beautifully together – with a big nod to sustainability - by designers Tonik, who know a pretty thing when they see it.

Middle Eight opens on 28th October.
66 Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 5BX
middleeight.com