The Ned, the last big reason to go back to London, the last big reason to go back to London
-What plan do you have for tonight?
-Dine at **The Ned**.
-What do you want? What do you want?
What are you going to do these days around here?
-I'm going to meet **The Ned**.
-I die. I need to go.
- Plan for tonight?
-I can't stay. I have dinner at **The Ned**.
-Really? Lucky.
For less than two months, all those who live or land in London they need to go to the city . **The Ned** is a urban resort that has just opened in that neighborhood until now outside leisure routes. It is a project of Nick Jones , author of the empire soho-house , although The Ned is not a Soho House. It is, rather, The project . The Ned is a community that includes hotel, private club, spa, gym, barbershop, hairdresser, terrace with pool and nine restaurants . Nine. This could be hell, a cross between mall, department store restaurant section and executive hotel. But Nick Jones has done few things wrong: in his professional biography there are no failures. The Ned is spectacular. The hyphens between syllables reproduce the moment when someone walks through your door, appears in the hall and looks down, left, right and up.
All personal 'grooming' at your salon/barbershop
TheNed play with advantage because It is located in a building from the 1920s owned by Sir Edwin Lutyens himself. Built in Portland stone, so London, the Midland Bank was and is an imposing place. It is classified as a category Grade I , the highest, to which exceptional buildings such as the cathedral of Saint Paul or Buckingham Palace . To undertake this ambitious project, Jones has joined the Sydell Group , New York hoteliers who are behind NoMad, Line or Freehand. Between the two companies they have taken over the 200 million pounds that the reform has cost.
Although it has been completely refurbished, the structure has been maintained with very, very high ceilings and architectural details typical of the bank. The central counter is a stage where every night there is live music and the safe deposit box, which appeared in Goldfinger, hosts a bar. Is he Vault-Bar and in it there are good family armchairs and the dim lighting that corresponds to a place destined for secrecy: there are 3600 safes in it . It is exclusively for members.
Exterior of The Ned building
The central space, the Grand Banking Hall, It has 3,000 square meters and was the old hall of the bank; now houses the nine restaurants that serve food from around the world and has capacity for 1000 people . The dimensions are exaggerated and it could be a place more concerned with impressing (it has 92 granite columns) than with embracing those who come to eat and drink. It is not. get to be a place full of corners and intimacy thanks to a color palette between pinks and greens, indirect light and armchairs in which it is easy to sit back and let the hours go by.
Each restaurant and bar has its personality: Millie's Lounge serves British food; malibu kicthen Californian; Sou Cafe , French; Zobler's Delicatessen takes us to New York; Kaia, to Asia Pacific; The Nickel Bar, to North American flavors; Cecconi's , a recurring restaurant in Soho House, is Italian. They all have the same aesthetic tone and the boundaries are smooth; there is hardly any difference between one and the other.
The Ned's proposal is more groundbreaking than it seems. His bet on the City could not be more cunning. In this neighborhood there is money, energy and a lot of need for decompression. That's why, The Ned serves food 24 hours. We wanted to book at Cecconi's and they gave us a table at 4 in the morning . It seemed late to us. Or early. In this club, people with ties are accepted. In The Ned there are hundreds of them . For the first time, businessmen and women who weren't allowed in other clubs, including Soho House, because they weren't creative, can come every night. They come every night. It's the new neighborhood pub. But what a pub and what a neighborhood.
The hotel is open to all, dress as they dress . It has 252 rooms decorated with a touch of the era of jazz and the Titanic . The interior design has a penchant for the upholstery of an English mansion and the sophistication of a Scott Fitzgerald character. It knows how to be frivolous and important, like a song from Cole Porter. The pool, with views of Sant Paul , is only open to guests and members of the club, such as private spaces in which it is not allowed to take pictures. The rest are freely accessible to commoners. Even the prices aren't high by crazy city standards. You can dine at Millie's for £40 and for £45 you can enjoy the Afternoon Tea , a Gray Goose cocktail and a manicure or pedicure at Cheeky.
Indoor pool at The Ned
Perfection is boring, so let's find some flaw to TheNed _(----Space to think----) _. Already! When the band is playing it can be hard to hear your tablemates. The photographs do not do justice to the overwhelming space: forget instagram ; perhaps that is a virtue. Yet another error: everyone wants to go . Reservation is mandatory. Although if they don't give us a table at 10 we can always have dinner (or breakfast) a plate of fettuccini at 4 in the morning.
One of the rooms in The Ned
The Ned is self sufficient . Someone could spend weeks here without stepping foot on the street. You would have satisfied the basic needs and the superfluous ones. The Club has an excellent cultural program, there are meeting rooms that can serve as offices, meals that you won't repeat for months, and there is a swimming pool where you can do lengths. What more could you want? A park, perhaps. Or the sea. Don't let Nick Jones know: he is capable of including them in his next adventure.
The Ned or the self-sufficiency of a hotel