Oswald’s
GLAMOUR ISN’T WHAT IT WAS. Anybody and anything can lay a claim, it seems, provided they throw enough money at it. Even then – perhaps especially then – the results are too often meretricious, if not downright vulgar. We’ve drifted a long way from the days when the majority of the population never had a chance to see it up close.
The descendants of that same majority aren’t likely to glimpse it at Oswald’s now. That’s not because it isn’t glamorous. It is, spectacularly so. Indeed, it’s probably the most glamorous nightspot in London today. It’s simply that it’s so exclusive that its portals remain firmly if politely barred to many who’d like to enter.
Essentially a wine club in which members can store their own bottles in a superbly appointed cellar, Oswald’s, which was established by Robin Birley in 2018, is much more than the sum of its parts. Christened after the proprietor’s grandfather, the inter-war Society portraitist Oswald Birley, it’s a shimmering temple of luxury in which a grand staircase worthy of an Edwardian ocean liner connects the chandelier-hung dining room on the ground floor with the ultra-opulent drawing room directly above. If the effect is theatrical, it’s also wildly chic. I can think of no other establishment in which sophistication, far from being an exception, is virtually a sine qua non. Members only.
See also: Claridge’s, 5 Hertford Street
