The Journal

This meant after-work drinks weren’t confined to Thursday or Friday. They bled into Monday and beyond. And why not? The Library Bar was iconic and had enough free bar snacks to feed you for the evening. But if we felt special (a Wednesday, say), we headed to the Berkeley, and there we felt like gods.

The Blue Bar was a work of art. There is no question that in its day (around 2007) it was the best hotel bar in London, if not the world.

The map was simple. The Library Bar was for oligarchs, the Mandarin and Harvey Nics 5th floor for professionals (a glass of Moët for my lady friend, please), the American Bar at the Savoy was all peeling paint, dandruff and tourists, and if you wanted glamour you went to Nobu or Hakkasan.

The beauty of the David Collins Studio design lay in the Lutyens blue and ostrich skin. Its sheer exuberance lifted the drinks and service to another level. The waitresses were the forerunners of Chiltern Firehouse, and the bar team, all with names like Serbian warlords, were hailed as the very best.

In a world of places that look good on Instagram and terrible in reality, the Blue Bar was magnificent on both counts. Not that you would ever have been allowed anything so vulgar as to take a photograph.

For years, West Londoners racked up serious Uber miles creeping across to Newington Green for the experience.

Then Thomas Straker, fresh from his butter-smeared lockdown fame, jumped on the bandwagon. He has the rare magic shared by a select few of London’s great restaurateurs: he is deeply talented and unlikeable in equal measure. The sort of man who is loud and rude at parties, and still leaves with everyone’s number. No wonder he has taken his Bedales sensibility to New York this week.

The restaurant itself has no redeeming features. It is uncomfortable and charmless; the wine list is workmanlike (although a strong BTG list, but the miserable 125ml serve for the Coravin), and the cocktails smack of a Golborne TGI Fridays. But, and it is a big but, the food and the staff are exceptional. Straker clearly attracts the very best, or at least a phalanx of West London nepo babies who will one day open family-funded restaurants of their own.

I may sound chippy, but I’m glad a new generation will learn what a good neighbourhood restaurant should be. There is a neat little line to be drawn between Straker’s and places like the outstanding Juliet in Stroud.

That said, £12 for a single measly bite of crab on a hash brown is cheeky. It is also pretty darn good, which sums up Straker’s, and Straker, rather perfectly.

But nowadays there is only one impossibly hot ticket: Jondal, Ibiza. You either know someone with an in (probably because you’ve dropped some wedge there before) or you commit the inexcusable sin and book months ahead. Either way, you’ve worked hard. You’ll enjoy it.

And there is much to enjoy. A white Burgundy fridge that would put the George V to shame. Staff who play the game. A superb spot, just far enough from the beachgoers. Spectacular fresh fish.

But is it special? Does it bring enough occasion to justify a bill with Turkish lira levels of zeros? And importantly, is it fun?

Put a Riedel glass and some earthenware on a driftwood table and it is still, well, a reclaimed wooden table. At least the French go through the motions: the freebies, the cutlery, bread baked on site, properly cold butter, petits fours, and on and on. The “less is more” approach is starting to feel a little tight. And, I hate to say it, affectacious.

Last week I lunched at Es Fumeral on lovely Cala Nova, a bucket and sand castle beach with a small cove of overweight, sunburnt naturists. Same chic shack aesthetic, and admittedly no drinkable wine under €100. But the food was excellent and the bill a third of Jondal’s.

If you want to be seen and have a very special lunch, I get it. I just fear some restaurants may one day disappear up their own arse.

Some, though, leave an indelible mark. More than 200,000 of you looked at our recent post on Chiltern and Old Annabel’s, which tells me we still hold these rooms dear.

Somewhere in the 20 years between Café de Paris and Chiltern sat The Cuckoo Club, on the site of the historic Stork Rooms, a stone’s throw from that forgettable basement bar.

It came to us courtesy of the Lorenz family of Café de Paris fame. Patriarch Bobby stood at the door to greet you (and, one suspects, to keep an eye on the till). His eldest, Jamie, brought the vibe, with assorted family members in key roles. Jamie was surely Richard James’s best customer, and can now reportedly be found on a regenerative farm somewhere between Costa Rica and Ibiza. Nobody said running a club was easy.

The floor belonged to Gordon, of Boujis fame, who has been the linchpin of most great London openings since.

Cuckoo heralded the return of dinner and dancing, and had that rare gift of mixing a London crowd with an international one, seamlessly. The music was rock and deep house. It shouldn’t have worked. It did.

For a few glorious years, Cuckoo was the place. Swallow Street was permanently roadblocked and the room was rammed. It may technically still be open, though I’m not sure anyone has been in a decade.

Word is a new club is planned for the site. Perhaps we’ll all be back on Swallow Street soon.

Good times. PS for the real matches go to @matchboxmemories

When restaurants close, it’s normally a fire or a rat. There are always promises of a return, but most never come back. Maggie Jones’s, I’m pleased to say, has returned, and I’m even happier to say that not much has changed.

Every restaurant I’ve ever owned has had to serve one dish: peas with more butter and bacon than peas. It’s a staple at both La Poule au Pot and Maggie Jones’s, which is no surprise, as they share owners.

Both take you on a journey back in time, one British, one French. But Maggie Jones’s wins on the naughty 80s affair front, with handsome waiters, thigh-slapping portions, little nooks, kitchen crockery and litres of good, ordinary Chablis.

I’m glad it survived the fire. It’s a special place, and amid the endless stream of Instagram-friendly openings, sometimes we need somewhere that simply makes us feel safe, and a little naughty.

Downstairs, a hello to Denny, Steve, fat Leo, Gordon and anyone else you knew. Then a Crack Baby to get the evening going. You’d smile at Rusty the DJ. You’d get nothing back.

For a few years it was the centre of the earth: a club run by friends, full of friends. Before it came the West End clubs, miserable places like Chinawhite, full of wannabes and people who looked as if they were on no-fly lists. Boujis was for Londoners. Well, rich West Londoners. But it felt like home, albeit a home where you paid £5 for a spritz of Tom Ford and a Tic Tac.

Getting a table was a bit naff, best left to the international students. Ending up in the Kitchen, though, was a rite of passage: the inner sanctum, hosted by Jake.

Born of Matt Hermer’s Eclipse bars, Boujis was in the right place at the right time. These were the last days of Rome. It was before the crash and before online dating, the young royals were out, and big bottle culture had just arrived.

It’s a Five Guys now. But for a while it was the password for a good night. You’d be at a dinner party, everyone a little tipsy, plates nearly empty, and someone would say, “Boujis?”

Two black cabs later...

Every big developer now has its anchor sites, meant to “add value” for the proles in the offices above. Inevitably they go to the big operators (brands you see at Heathrow), although this is a little hospitality group, I suspect this one is designed to be rolled out.

If so, it’s rather exciting. An Irish-meets-Kentucky pub (did the Church of Rome ever cross the Dixie line?) beside a linen-smothered, beautifully lit grill room.

The menu is simple and solid: good snacks, good steaks, greedy puddings - executed consistently. There’s also an entirely separate set lunch menu, healthy and generous. I imagine the clubhouse at Augusta serves much the same fare in much the same surroundings.

With The Ivy now the default in the provinces, enormous menu and all, isn’t it time lunch and supper was something simpler but conversely more substantial, deliverable by a commis chef and therefore superb value?

Pleasantly surprised.

If the Chelsea and the Cecil are synonymous with death, the Chateau is for those who choose to live another day.

Like all great hotels, it’s actually rather basic. Fifties bungalows creak under the weight of constant parties, and the main building has the air of a studio lot tour.

But the magic is in the mix, and the history seeps through the walls. You might not stay there when you’re in LA, but by God you’ll visit. And you’ll always end up in a room, usually far longer than is appropriate.

It’s a bucket-list hotel, but it’s more than that. Sadly, now I can afford it, I no longer have the energy for it. Yes, that’s it. It’s a hotel for people who are rich before they’re ready.

And that’s why it’s so damn fun.

I had always wanted to update it for a new generation. Minus the map, of course, which Google has long since retired.

So who is William Wolfe? In many ways he is a blend of my father, myself and every great raconteur I have met.

We hope this guide confirms your excellent taste, and perhaps introduces you to a few new places for a wandering day in London, and occasionally a little further afield.

📖 Link in bio: mrwilliamwolfe.com

Whether it’s piped into the Grand Divan or fanned from the trolley itself hardly matters. It lingers. A huge tick from me.

The room is spectacular and ugly in equal measure. No elegance whatsoever, but British through and through and marvellously laid out. Request a banquette; we had one for two. The detail has been thought through beautifully, and the staff have that Jeremy King blend of military bearing and charm.

We sat opposite Mr Farage and Mr (posh George) Cottrell, presumably on a date. I imagine Simpson’s is where they’d both like their ashes scattered.

The real joy is the menu: a rollicking, rumbustious John Bull of a thing that belongs behind glass at the British Museum. English food has been contorted and tickled endlessly, but here is a phone book of British classics, executed well and without kitsch nostalgia. The kitchen must be intense.

As non-members, we were granted permission to pop down to the basement speakeasy, a spectacular room that tiptoes along the right side of vulgar.

The whole place feels as though it will be around for another hundred years. How often can you say that of a reboot?

Since the Derby Dinner was priced out of the Savoy, I’ve had little reason to visit the Strand. But when I next need a new ice axe, I’ll certainly swing by Simpson’s.

Not The Wolseley (too showy). Not The Ivy (too Biggins). No, it was that quiet little street just off the busiest road in London.

I can still see the Sovereign Jaguars pulling up to deliver stars, politicians and Martin Sorrell through those iconic doors, where your coat was taken to the fanfare of a rather loud piano. Then Jesús would spot you, excuse himself from a table with a polite touch, and be straight over. Kisses, hugs, his mood always excellent.

Everyone lingered at the bar before sitting down in 80s luxury, ideally beneath a Bailey of someone you knew. Then that bread, in its pewter dish. The bread. Jesus.

The food was great for its day. It has been copied so often it might seem generic now, but then it was really, really good. Let no one tell you it wasn’t a proper restaurant.

The loos were based in hell and tremendous fun. Inevitably you left pissed, pinched a cab from the Ritz rank and motored over to Annabel’s in three minutes.

Always busy, always fun, and seemingly always open. A rare restaurant that would take an 11.30 sit-down. For me, at least.

Others throw everything at a buzz: PR, free meals for celebs, a gimmick or two. Le Caprice needed none of it. A landlord or covid killed it. Apparently there's something there now. Not been.

It defined the word vibe, probably invented it, and we’ll never see its like again.

There is little less romantic than the Friday scramble for a train (or try and best the traffic!), a muddy walk, and a flat pint in some car park of a pub. Compare that with an evening by the fire, a nightcap from the honesty bar, and Soho waiting outside the window. That is the real prize.

Hazlitt’s, on Frith Street, is the ultimate fun spot, with or without your trousers. Ten superb restaurants, a dozen bars, a jazz club or two, and mischief enough to see you through to Monday, all within a hundred yards.

Soho can be a bit rubbish these days. Not when you’re sleeping in the middle of it.

The rooms are heavenly, the staff beautifully discreet, and like any really good hotel, you will never see another guest.

London loves a confusing name. Really it’s a password, like calling Hertford Street anything else once you’ve been enough. If you’re still saying The Firehouse, you’ve probably never smoked via the loo (and quickly via the disabled loo!), never been “upstairs”, never cuddled Max, never left via the Mews.

Decor and food mattered enormously. The designers and the chef have both gone on to great things (Chiltern helped, no doubt), but the magic Andre Balazs sprinkled was in the bit in between. The scent on the stairs, masking the fog of cigarette smoke. The bassy speakers tucked into the ladder shed. Those women in those dresses. And the lighting. God, the lighting. Good lighting forgives a multitude of sins, and gets people laid. Chiltern was always about sex. Lots of it. Not the tacky loo sex of Mayfair, the £2,000-basic-room-at-1am kind.

No single friend who got in…stayed single for long.

But it was the crowd that made Chiltern. A mix, yes, but a mix of like-minded people. Part of the magic was the hotel guests (no fanny-packed tourists) and the fact that money alone couldn’t lever you in. Everyone drank cocktails at their tables. No Cristal, no bottles of 1942.

The fried chicken deserves an honourable mention too. Copied everywhere since. Still the best there.

Then there was “upstairs”. Enough said.

Chiltern left London not far off the top of its game, remarkable a decade after opening.

One suspects when it returns (and I can confirm it will) a new generation will discover it, and it will roll on and on. And why not. People will always need fried chicken, a fag and a shag.

Granada is a proper large town, though I suspect the Spanish consider it a city. I’m told an enormous amount of money was made from beetroot, and it has the air of generational stealth wealth about it. For a town with one of the most majestic buildings on the planet, tourism is surprisingly light, and unlike Barcelona, it doesn’t feel like it needs foreign money to exist.

The rooms at Santa Paula are tasteful in their simplicity, the total antithesis of the gaudy, frankly ugly polished wood look you find in some Mediterranean countries. Somebody really needs to tell Venice how ugly its hotel room aesthetic has become.

A weekend here with a private tour of the Alhambra, followed by a cheeky night at Marbella Club in summer or a quick ski in winter, would be close to perfection. Fair warning: Malaga airport is a good €200 taxi ride away, but perhaps that’s exactly why Granada feels like a town that can look after itself.

A gem of a hotel, in a gem of a town.

The country house hotel used to mean elderly couples in Jags marking 40 miserable years, square plates, bathrooms best not discussed. Then it got fashionable: spas, padel, good-looking staff.

A weekend in a big hotel is still naff, food rarely up to much (Heckfield the exception). Here are ten places (+ The Gunton) worth the drive or skip the lunch at the Pig/Newt/Rhino.

COTSWOLDS: The Old Butchers
One of the best country restaurants you’ll ever eat at. Enormous menu, usually a red flag, here a sign of a chef who knows his kitchen. Husband-and-wife-and-family run. Excellent value. Good 🍷 list.

STROUD: Juliet
Sister of the legendary Woolpack. Proper French bistro with hipster minimalism, and it works. London’s trickiest critics are converts.

WILTSHIRE: The Compasses Inn
Not a culinary destination, just a damn good pub. Sit near the bar for the proper experience.

N. YORKSHIRE: The Golden Lion, Osmotherley
Best pub on the planet. Don’t tell anyone.

WEST SUSSEX: The Horse Guards Inn
Stealth wealth country, hard to reach, quietly rich. Wins outright.

WEST SUSSEX: The Swan Inn, Fittleworth
Hot on the Horse Guards’ heels, an equally gorgeous spot. Favourite find of the year.

NORFOLK: Gunton Arms
The G of places to stay with good food. Go before you die. In a deer park. Its own league.

MARGATE: Angela’s
Margate’s a culinary capital now. Best dinner of 2025 here: tartare sauce with asparagus that nearly brought tears.

WALES: Felin Fach Griffin
Lumping Wales with English counties does it no favours, but the plaudits are earned. Not pretty outside; food and setting are.

S. DEVON: The Seahorse, Dartmouth
North Devon loyalist, but South Devon delivers: a long lunch in Dartmouth. Mitch Tonks’ turbot is top five ever and I’ve eaten 1k whole turbots.

CORNWALL: Nare Hotel
The one actual hotel here, the Oslo Court of country hotels. Cocktails, jacketed men, 1980s food, sherry, coronation chicken sandwiches. The Nare thrives on trusted instincts whereas other hotels modernised and failed. Take a sleeper down and save the £4k you’d spend at the Newt.

Ida, Kensal (an estate agent might say Queen’s Park) is the epitome of a family-run local: all the charm and the small footprint that goes with it. They used to do a Wednesday night deal: glass of red, bowl of pasta, a tenner, those were the days. But the cooking is still great, still simple, and still reasonable.

Canteen is the closest you’ll get to The River Cafe, and sadly the prices are creeping toward River Cafe levels too, though still roughly half the price. A great room, some of the best staff in town, and no shortage of vibe. No booking and a thin wine list make it slightly stressful, but once you’re sitting down it’s spectacular from start to finish.

Harry’s Bar is an event, one that shouldn’t happen too often, to keep it special. I’m not sure the pasta is quite what it once was, but the people-watching and the best staff in the world make it a jewel in the Birley Club crown.

Ciao Bella, Lamb’s Conduit Street, is a flashback to everything wonderful about Chianti in a basket in the ‘80s. Sitting outside on a Saturday for three hours is a rite of passage, followed by the excellent shopping next door and, quite possibly, another drink at Noble Rot.

And now to Padella, which took all the lessons learned at sister restaurant Trullo and handed them straight to the people. Pound for pound, it’s the best pasta restaurant on earth. No wonder the standard order is “every pasta, please,” regardless of table size. It’s also one of the last restaurants in London where the bill doesn’t make you flinch. Soho and Shoreditch sites.

Walking down those steps, through the gloss yellow western swing doors, and putting your name in “the book” was a rite of passage. A Bellini in the first bar. A discreet check of the Buddha room in case you’d missed a pretty girl. A quick hello to Mohammed. Squeezed onto a table, praying someone else was paying. Then dancing, smoking, a wee, more dancing, a black cab home, and the slow realisation you’d left your emergency credit card in the wallet behind the bar.

It was magical. Special. Very, very sexy.

From the British ladies’ ski team dinner to Lady Gaga’s iconic performance, it had it all.

We miss you, Annabel’s.

A melange of perfect hardware, kitchen items, soft furnishings and traditional children’s toys make this a true wonder to explore.

Marseille is a challenging city, but these days one of the hottest destinations in Europe for those with an eye for the new. A Berlin-on-sea, with some dark edges and some wonderful Frenchness.

The security as you exit Maison Empereur tells you something about modern Marseille, but inside, you’re transported back to retail as it should be: an edit of wonderful and practical things reflecting the owner’s aesthetic, and frankly, what I dream mine is.

The prices reflect the proprietor’s understanding of exactly what an iconic store is worth. Don’t let that put you off.

Truly, it’s a rare store where, if you had the means, you’d furnish your entire home there, and it would work beautifully for a hundred years.

A must-stop if you’re in the south of France. Take a van.

Having a membership at clubs such as Holland Park, Hurlingham, Queens, Bath and Racquets (for squash), and the ultimate clubhouse, Wimbledon (sorry, Augusta), is the ultimate flex. With such a selection of elite clubs, it’s crucial to ensure that your equipment is perfectly strung, and there is no better provider of gut and racquets than this shop on Wigmore Street.

What's more, it's conveniently situated near @dintaifunguk in Selfridges. While you wait for your Wilson to be strung, you can enjoy some of the finest dumplings in the world and pick up some luxurious bath salts.