Concierge.com's insider take:

London's leafy Little Venice, while pretty, is more "Little" than "Venice," consisting as it does of one canal. This brace of handsome Victorian mansions—a former hospital—is a couple of blocks away from that single stretch of water in the blah-but-getting-hipper residential neighborhood of Maida Vale. But an in-betweeny, non-tourist area is a small price to pay for, well, a small price, and this place delivers quite a bit for the buck. The 43 rooms are done in Christmassy pine-and-red-and-white tones, or shades of brown with velvet and dark wood, and come with a/c and WiFi, robes and slippers, fruit, tea and coffee, satellite TV and 24-hour room service—and the sheets are Frette. Improbably, JFK and Freud both stayed here and have bequeathed their names to suites; the former containing the very bed in which Kennedy slept. If suites are beyond your budget and the hotel's not full, they'll probably upgrade you—if not, you may find yourself a bit squashed and taking refuge in the incongruously mod but still cozy E Bar, noshing on tapas.