Dregs of fake Provence: Whitcomb’s reviewed

Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first super boutique hotel’, which may mean that it is the world’s biggest small hotel. Or its smallest big hotel. I don’t know. Whatever its existential status, the developers destroyed an art deco cinema — the dour and lovely Odeon West End — to make it, and it looks like a piece of bright blue infant Lego with lesions for windows. Heritage organisations objected to the cinema’s destruction. Westminster council replied: who cares? We need Lego with lesions, or anything that looks like Lego: look at the Hotel W round the corner. That looks like a giant Lego fridge! I wonder if the council members have watched Blade Runner too many times, and in Lego. But not at the Odeon West End, never again.

The Londoner has five restaurants because one just won’t do.