The Best Hotels Near Sargasso, by the Record
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Tracey Emin originals hang in a 14-room boutique hotel directly across from Turner Contemporary, which tells you everything about who owns this place and why it looks the way it does. Art-world insiders renovated a Georgian shell into something warm and precisely styled, where every object feels chosen rather than sourced from a catalogue. The restaurant turns out Mediterranean-accented seasonal British cooking for those who can tear themselves away from the beach opposite.
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A copper soaking tub for two sits at the heart of the spa, which tells you something about the ambitions of this boutique hotel. A Victorian building on the High Street, a short walk from the beach, it's been refitted in a warmly spare contemporary style. There's a restaurant, a rooftop bar in summer, and Margate itself keeps getting more interesting, with the Turner Contemporary drawing a crowd that's happily colonized the whole seafront.
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Local artists' work covers the walls at this upscale guesthouse on Dalby Square in Cliftonville, and the effect is closer to a boutique hotel than anything involving doilies and a laminated menu. The décor is eclectic, the breakfast is locally sourced, and evenings bring craft cocktails. Margate's restaurant scene is walkable from here, which is either convenient or dangerous depending on your willpower.
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A restoration crew pulled up layers of bad decisions and found a magnificent parquet floor underneath, which tells you everything about how this small-town inn's renovation went. The Bell is a proper English hotel in a genuinely picturesque medieval town, with rooms that are mellow-toned and quietly luxurious, farm-to-table cooking in the restaurant, and Royal St. George's golf course a short drive away if you need an excuse to be here beyond the charm.
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Eight rooms, each different, many fitted with a turntable and a record collection: The Rose is a boutique hotel in a former pub on Deal's high street, reimagined by a pair of designers with an obvious weakness for vintage finds and saturated color. Roll-top baths appear in some rooms. The restaurant turns out modern British cooking that pulls its own weight. Rates start around £161 a night, which, for this much personality, feels like a fair trade.
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A 17th-century manor wrapped in three acres of garden, Boys Hall is a country house hotel with nine individually designed bedrooms, all beams, wood paneling, and old-school floral prints that feel less like decor and more like the house just always looked this way. A barn extension holds the restaurant, and there's an on-site pub for rainy evenings and a terrace for the opposite. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
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A coaching inn that's been on Rye's High Street forever, the George has been quietly tidied up without anyone making a fuss about it. Half-timbered ceilings and deep antique bathtubs stay put; the beds are properly heaped with good linen. The floor plan is a cheerful maze of narrow stairs and odd turns. The George Grill leans into local seafood and regional produce, and pours English wines with the confidence of a place that knows France is right there.