The table is the ticket
Visitors picture a VIP night as a matter of getting in. In the late rooms of Mayfair it is really a matter of sitting down. A reserved table secures the door for the party that booked it, a place to set down a glass for the next four hours, a waiter who learns your name, and a small territory in a crowded room. Everything else in the night is arranged around it: where you stand, whom you meet, when you leave.
A guest who arrives without one is at the mercy of the door and then of the bar, and on a Friday after midnight neither is merciful. Hence the Society's habit, borrowed from the regulars: book the table first, and plan the rest of the evening backwards from it.
Minimum spend, in plain words
Most Mayfair clubs price a table not by a fee for the seat but by a minimum spend, a sum the party undertakes to spend on drinks over the course of the night. It is a floor, nothing more. Spend less and the difference is usually added to the bill at the end; spend more and nobody mentions the minimum again.
The figure moves with the night of the week, the size of the party and the position of the table, and a service charge is normally added on top. The clubs set these terms and change them often, so ask for the current ones in writing when you reserve, together with the hour until which the table will be held. None of it is secret, and a club that will not put its terms in writing is telling you something.
The host who remembers you
Behind every good table stands a person: the club's host or reservations manager, who places parties, watches the door and knows which of tonight's tables is about to become the best in the room. Book with the club directly rather than through anyone on the pavement or in your messages who promises a table they cannot see. A direct booking carries your name; a borrowed one carries somebody else's, and so does the goodwill.
Hosts remember guests who arrive when they said they would, keep the party to the number booked and thank them on the way out. That memory is worth more than any amount of spending, and it is how regulars come to be offered the booth by the dance floor on a night when the room is full.
Reading the floor
Tables are not equal, and the difference between them has surprisingly little to do with price.
Arriving on time, leaving on form
Tables are usually held until a stated hour, often around midnight, after which the host may give yours to someone waiting. Arrive together if you can, since a party that trickles in one at a time looks to a door like several strangers. Dress for the club's own code rather than for the idea of a nightclub; in Mayfair that means tailoring more often than not, and trainers are seldom welcome.
Leaving is the part most often done badly. Ask for the bill before the last hour rather than when the lights come up, read it calmly at the table, and go while the room is still good. The car should be waiting at the kerb, not being summoned from it.
Theatre you may decline
Some Mayfair rooms still greet a large order with a procession: sparklers, a bottle held aloft, a moment in the spotlight for the whole room to see. It is entirely optional. A word to the host when you book, asking for your order to arrive without ceremony, is honoured almost everywhere, and the Society's guests nearly always make it. A table can be the best in the room without announcing itself to the rest of the room.
A companion at the table
Your companion meets you at the table, or in a hotel bar beforehand if you would rather walk in together, and for the whole night she is your guest, not a member of the club's staff and nobody's promotion. She dresses to the room, keeps the table good humoured when a neighbouring party grows loud, sees that a jug of water reaches the table somewhere around one, and knows when a night has reached its peak. Nights out in clubland sets out the usual shapes, and for a members' house rather than a nightclub the customs in Annabel's or 5 Hertford Street and the note on members' clubs apply instead.
Stacy is tall enough to see the whole floor from the booth and spontaneous enough to suggest a second room when the first begins to flag; by day she photographs strangers in the street, and her wit is sharpest when aimed at herself. She is one of the statuesque companions. Jasmin is petite, quick and fond of salsa, takes a class every week and can usually name the botanicals in a gin after the first sip, which makes her excellent company at a table where the drinks matter.
A night of this kind usually runs to four hours at £1,800, begun late; if it shows no sign of ending, raise an extension with Cressida before the last booked hour begins. Everything is arranged through booking, and Berkeley Square lies a few minutes from most of the late rooms in Mayfair, which makes it the natural place to begin with a quiet drink.
Asked at the table
No. The clubs take reservations directly, and a table booked under your own name with the club's own team is the most dependable kind. Anyone offering a table they do not control deserves polite doubt.
Usually the difference is added to the bill at the end of the night. The terms differ from club to club, so ask for them in writing when you book.
No. She comes alone, as your guest. If you would like two companions who already know each other, Cressida arranges that as a duo evening, with the figure given in advance.
Written by Cressida, Membership secretary at Berkeley Square Society. To turn any of this into an evening, write to the desk.
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