The Dorchester

General Eisenhower planned the D-Day invasion from a suite at the Dorchester. The hotel's reinforced concrete construction made it one of the safest buildings in wartime London, which is as good a reason as any for the Allied high command to have set up shop here. Elizabeth Taylor celebrated several of her marriages within these walls, which, given the number of marriages, says as much about her fondness for the hotel as anything else. Opened in 1931 on Park Lane overlooking Hyde Park, it now runs to 250 rooms, the three-Michelin-starred Alain Ducasse restaurant, and the newly reimagined Vesper Bar. Dorchester Collection, and very much the collection's flagship.