The Matchbox Collection

A couple of years ago I walked into Mountain in Soho. Strolling into the hottest restaurant in London, as it was then, was never going to produce a table. Except, miracle of miracles, they had something downstairs.

After five minutes the déjà vu hit. After ten I realised where I was.

Twenty years earlier I’d have been sitting in the best nightclub in the world: Kabaret’s Prophecy.

It was born of a cash and carry, I’m guessing in Park Royal or Scrubs Lane. Shimshad Khalid was the son of one of London’s biggest booze wholesalers and presumably had a brainwave: why don’t we start selling Cristal and Krug to ourselves?

Then something strange happened. He went cash berserk. He found the perfect little site off Golden Square, hired David Collins to create the most groundbreaking, visually arresting club on the planet, and made Dom Pérignon the house wine. It was so far ahead of its time, I’m not sure we’d be ready for it even now.

The whole of London trying to squeeze into one tiny club became problematic. But for a brief, glorious spell in the noughties, London had its Studio 54, and it popped off.

As Timo, their hilarious promoter, would put it in his central-casting camp commandant accent: “Dictatorship on zee door, democracy on zee dance floor.”

He couldn’t have captured it better.

In my youth I briefly worked for Krug. The grand, embassy-style offices were a stone’s throw from the Lanesborough and the Berkeley (and the joyous Motcombs).

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.

Lately I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of places we used to go. I once spent an evening in a small basement bar on Swallow Street with Lindsay Lohan and cannot, for the life of me, remember its name. Places come and go.

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

“Jake, Jake, it’s just me and this guy.” You were practically shouting to be heard over the hundred people who weren’t getting in. A blonde head would appear round the door, a quick nod to the cuddly bouncer, and in you went.

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...

Last year I wrote about Canteens: London’s most exclusive clique of restaurants, the ones that shaped a generation by drawing its very best crowd. The River Café. Scott’s. But the original, the mothership, was Le Caprice.

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.

It’s Chiltern. Not Chiltern Firehouse. Not, God forbid, The Firehouse.

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.

Can you review somewhere that’s closed? Not really, but some places are so wonderful they deserve an indulgent reminder anyway.

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.

COMING SOON: The closest restaurant you’ll get to a St James Club by character is @wiltons_restaurant, but the closest in ambience and food was always @simpsons1828. I love a trolley, a highlight was accidentally going to @harrysbarmayfair on July 4th and having the Italian-cooked Turkey - for the record, don’t! In its final days, Simpson’s had run out of steam, and I think @jeremykingrestaurants will do a phenomenal job when it’s reborn this year. But in the meantime, let’s remember the squeaky trolley and the old Simpson's gravy smell. P.S. If you still want a trolley and a crepe Suzette at the table,
You can’t beat @marksclubmayfair