Sea Containers London Leans Harder Into the Liner Conceit With Its Refreshed River Suites
Jacu Strauss has reworked the Southbank hotel's Thames Apartment and Riverview Suites for 2026, and a Gordon Ramsay partnership is due later this year. Suitcase checked into a 65sq m balcony suite, from £550.
Sea Containers London, the 359-room Lore Group hotel on the Southbank, has reworked the top of its room stock: the new Riverside Suites opened this summer, and designer Jacu Strauss has refreshed the Thames Apartment and the Riverview Suites for 2026. Suitcase stayed in a 65sq m Riverview Balcony Suite, priced from £550 a night, and found the nautical fiction more persuasive there than anywhere else in the building: North Sea-grey panelling, a curving powder-blue sofa, flashes of red, floor-to-ceiling glass onto the Thames and St Paul's opposite, a balcony running the length of the suite, and a roll-top tub for two in a white marble bathroom.
The conceit runs through the public rooms as well, from the blue anchor sculpture in the lobby to a curved copper reception desk shaped like a hull, and the four-room Cabin Suite Collection channelling transatlantic crossings. Elsewhere: Lyaness, Ryan Chetiyawardana's ground-floor cocktail bar; the 12th Knot rooftop; a Curzon cinema screening Friday to Sunday; and Agua Spa, open 9.30am to 7pm. The verdict on Sea Containers Restaurant is that its menu underuses the location, which may explain the Gordon Ramsay tie-up announced for later this year. Thirty-four bedrooms are wheelchair accessible.