Oscar Wilde’s café, where David Bowie retired Ziggy Stardust.
Stand on Regent Street near Piccadilly Circus and you are looking at a building that has seen more of London’s cultural history than almost any other. Writers, painters, prime ministers and rock stars have all passed through the doors of Café Royal — and since 2012 it has been one of the capital’s grandest hotels.
The story begins with a debt. In 1863 French wine merchant Daniel Nicolas Thévenon and his wife Célestine fled their creditors in Paris and arrived in London. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols, and in 1865 they opened a small café-restaurant in a former oilcloth warehouse just behind Regent Street.
It brought a taste of the Parisian brasserie to Victorian London, with a famous wine cellar to match. Its success was enormous — and the founders’ initials, D and C, can still be found in the hotel’s stained glass and gilded railings.
By the late 1800s Café Royal was the meeting place of London’s artists and writers. Oscar Wilde held court here — the hotel tells the story of the night he hallucinated, after too much absinthe, that a waiter was picking tulips in the Grill. Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence came too, and the café’s interior inspired painters such as Harold Gilman.
Politicians followed: in 1905 Winston Churchill waited here for news of his first government post. Over the decades the guests ranged from Muhammad Ali, who held a press conference here, to Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Diana.
On 3 July 1973, after his final concert as Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon, David Bowie held a farewell party at Café Royal that has gone down in rock history as “The Last Supper”. The guests included Mick and Bianca Jagger, Paul and Linda McCartney, Lou Reed, Barbra Streisand, Keith Moon and Cat Stevens.
Today the hotel remembers that night in Ziggy’s, its bar named after the alter ego Bowie retired here.
After a restoration by David Chipperfield Architects, Café Royal reopened as Hotel Café Royal in 2012, with around 160 rooms and suites. The Oscar Wilde Lounge still serves afternoon tea beneath its gilded ceiling, and Piccadilly Circus, Soho, Mayfair and the theatres of the West End are right outside.
Heathrow is about 50–70 minutes by car, Gatwick about 60–80 minutes, London City about 30–40 minutes. The train is fine if you travel light — but with luggage, children, a late flight or an arrival at Gatwick or London City, most guests prefer a private transfer straight to the door.
See your fixed price at the top of this page, or open the Heathrow to Hotel Café Royal and Gatwick to Hotel Café Royal pages.
From a couple escaping their debts to Bowie’s farewell to Ziggy Stardust, Café Royal has spent 160 years at the centre of London life — and it is still where people come to celebrate.
Sources: Hotel Café Royal — our history · Country & Town House · Country Life
One fixed price for the car to Hotel Café Royal, driver waiting inside arrivals with your name, flight tracked. Heathrow is about 50–70 minutes by car, Gatwick about 60–80 minutes, London City about 30–40 minutes.
Get my fixed price ↑Facts checked against the sources listed above, November 2026.
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