St James’s
Tucked into a gaslit courtyard off St James’s Place, Dukes is the hotel equivalent of a well-cut tweed jacket: understated, comfortable and much admired by people who know.
The bar is the stuff of legend. Ian Fleming is said to have found the inspiration for ‘shaken, not stirred’ here, and the unofficial limit is two martinis. I have tested that limit. It is a wise one.
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