Hotel Café Royal restoration

Café Royal began life in the 1860s as a place to eat and drink, and has been legendary ever since, popular with the city's in-crowds through the decades: Oscar Wilde, Noël Coward, Virginia Woolf, Brigitte Bardot; then, later, rock stars and royals, with rumours abounding of debauched parties behind its velvet curtains. David Chipperfield