Behind the unmarked doors: guests, limits and manners at Mayfair's members' clubs

A register of the doors

Mayfair keeps a younger generation of clubs than St James's, most of them founded for dining, dancing and late conversation rather than for reading the papers in silence. The best known descend from Mark Birley, who opened Annabel's in 1963 and followed it with Mark's Club on Charles Street and Harry's Bar on South Audley Street. George on Mount Street and Oswald's on Albemarle Street joined the family later, and in 2007 the whole group passed to Richard Caring.

Birley's son Robin went his own way and opened 5 Hertford Street, with Loulou's in its basement, among the lanes of Shepherd Market. On Dover Street, The Arts Club, founded in 1863, has reinvented itself for a new century, and on Grosvenor Square The Twenty Two pairs a club with a small hotel. Each keeps its own rules and none publishes all of them. What follows is the common ground, the customs that hold at most of these doors; the particulars are always worth confirming with the member whose name opens them.

The desk, and the moment of signing in

A guest arrives with the member or after the member, never before. At the desk the member gives his or her own name and the name of each guest, and the guest is signed in, on paper or on a screen. Some clubs allow a guest to wait in the hall or at the bar when the member is running a few minutes late and has telephoned ahead; others insist that the member be standing at the desk before any guest is let in. The safe arrangement is to arrive together, or to meet outside and walk in side by side.

Coats are taken at the door, and at most clubs photographs are not taken at all. Many forbid photography anywhere inside, and some ask that telephones be used for calls only in particular rooms, or not at all. Take this seriously: it is the rule members care about most, and the one a guest is most likely to break without meaning to.

How many guests, and how often

Most clubs limit the number of guests a member may bring on a single visit, usually to a small handful, and some tighten that limit on the busiest nights of the week or for their dancing rooms. A few keep a quiet note of how often the same non-member appears, on the reasonable view that a frequent visitor ought eventually to apply. None of this is secret, but it varies from club to club and shifts over time, so a member planning a larger party should check with the club before promising anyone a place.

Dress, conduct and who pays

Dress codes in the Mayfair clubs are generally smart rather than formal: good tailoring, proper shoes, no sportswear. Some dining rooms still expect a jacket on gentlemen, and the clubs around Berkeley Square tend towards dressing up rather than down, particularly as the night goes on. The discretion expected of members extends to everyone they bring. Nobody mentions who else was in the room, that night or afterwards.

Guests do not pay. Everything is signed to the member's account, and a guest's attempt to settle a bill is gently and firmly refused. It is one of the oldest club customs and one of the most consistently observed, so offering to pay is better not attempted at all.

Your companion, as your guest

If you are a member, a companion attends a club exactly as any other guest does: invited by you, signed in by you, and bound by the same rules. She arrives at the time you agree, meets you outside or in the entrance, keeps her phone in her bag, takes no photographs and forgets every well known face she happens to notice. The Society has no memberships of its own and opens no doors; the invitation, and the responsibility for it, belong to the member alone.

Clubs, like hotels, reserve the right to decline a guest, and on a crowded night a door may simply close to anyone not already expected. Accept it with good grace and move the evening elsewhere. Nights out in clubland sets out several shapes an evening in Mayfair can take, with or without a membership.

Without a membership

A guest with no club of his own still has most of Mayfair at his disposal. The hotel bars around the square and along Piccadilly keep late hours, need no introduction and are, in their own way, every bit as exclusive. Dining a few doors from a famous club rather than inside it is its own pleasure, and the tables of Annabel's district are mapped street by street in a separate note. For the last hour, the second venue lists rooms that will welcome you without a signature.

Names at ease behind a closed door

Karolina, who knows her opera and plays the piano, is happiest in a club room where somebody is playing well; she listens critically, applauds generously and remembers nobody by the morning. Angelika loves a small room with live music and has the stamina for a club that dances past midnight. Both belong among the raven haired companions.

Molly follows the soulful end of house music closely and will be first onto a small dance floor, which makes her the natural choice for a club where the music matters more than the menu. Whichever door you have in mind, Cressida arranges the evening through booking once the member's invitation is settled.