Bookings by Occasion · Night out companionship
Clubland after ten: a Mayfair night out that ends with the last car home
Mayfair after ten belongs to its clubs. Some are nightclubs with a doorman and a list; more are members' clubs behind Georgian fronts that give nothing away. A night out with the Society moves between them at your pace: a hotel bar to begin, a table with some life at it, music later, and a car home through empty streets.
One point is worth making at once. The Society holds no memberships and uses nobody's name to open a door. Where a club admits members and their guests only, your companion comes as your guest, and the invitation must come from you.
At 20:00
The occasion
Arranged around the evening you describe, never around a menu of extras.
Who suits Nights out in clubland
5 companions Cressida would propose first for an evening like this. Everyone else on the roster may be asked as well.
Three nights, three tempos
A quiet night: a martini at the Connaught Bar while the trolley does its rounds, supper at Bellamy's, and a nightcap at the hotel by midnight. Three hours at £1,500 hold it comfortably.
A loud night: dinner at Novikov, or at Hakkasan on Bruton Street, where a DJ takes over towards the weekend, then Amazónico on Berkeley Square for live music among the palms until late. Four hours at £1,800 is the usual choice.
A clubland night: dinner first, then Annabel's, 5 Hertford Street or whichever house holds your membership, and whatever the small hours bring after that. Book it long, because clubs are rarely at their best before one.
Dinner before the doors
Clubland rewards a proper dinner. Nobody wants a members' house to be the first stop of the night, and arriving fed and in good humour at about half past eleven is how the regulars manage it. Bruton Place is the natural place to eat beforehand: The Guinea Grill for a steak, Umu for something lighter, Bellamy's for a table where nobody overhears anything.
Tables, not queues
A good night out never involves standing on a pavement. Book the table under your own name, exactly as for any other guest, and tell Cressida where and when; your companion arrives at the table or meets you in a bar beforehand, and the booking page shows what the first message needs. If a room keeps a dress code, she dresses to it, and if it keeps a strict door she will not be the reason you are turned away.
The After Dark Notes cover where to dine near Annabel's before a late night, and how members' clubs treat guests, which is worth reading before a first visit.
Out of frame
Many of Mayfair's members' clubs ask guests not to take photographs, and the Society's companions need no reminding. Yours takes none, appears in none if she can help it, and steps gracefully aside when a friend of yours raises a phone for a group picture. Nothing about the evening reaches anyone's feed through her. If a photographer is working the door, she walks in a pace behind you and out of the light.
Pace, over a long night
A night out is not a race to the last bar. Your companion reads the table: she suggests leaving a room while it is still good, finds somewhere quieter when a conversation deserves it, and orders water for everyone at the right moment without making a point of it. The best nights in Mayfair have two or three stops, not six.
Companions for late rooms
Molly is at her best from ten until the small hours, has firm views on DJs and will order for the whole table. Milena likes the centre of a busy room and says what she thinks, warmly. Luna keeps to Monday to Thursday and will have settled on a bottle before the list reaches you. Tiffany prefers midweek and the velvet dark of a hotel bar. Jasmin, free after nine, treats a dance floor as the reward for a good dinner. Milena is one of the raven haired companions of the roster.
Where the night ends
A good night needs a good ending, and the Society's is simple: she leaves at the agreed hour, from your hotel lobby or the kerb outside the club, and nobody is left to find their own way. Most nights out begin and end in Mayfair, where her car costs nothing extra. Should the night want to run until morning, ask before the time is up; Cressida quotes the overnight in writing, provided your companion is free.
Nights out in clubland, asked
No, and anyone promising that deserves some doubt. Memberships and guest lists are yours; she comes as your guest and keeps to the house rules.
Certainly. Cressida answers at every hour, the tariff at one in the morning matches the tariff at nine in the evening, and several companions prefer a late start.
As much as the evening suits and never more than she likes. Many companions alternate champagne with water after midnight, which is a habit worth copying.
Gladly. Amazónico, Hakkasan and the hotel bars that stay open late all take reservations from anyone, and she will leave the members' houses to your membership.
Notes for the occasion
- 5 min readBehind the unmarked doors: guests, limits and manners at Mayfair's members' clubsAnnabel's, Mark's, Harry's Bar, George, 5 Hertford Street, The Arts Club: how a guest is signed in, how many a member may bring, and the codes kept behind Mayfair's unmarked doors.
- 5 min readThe second venue: leaving after the main course, on purposeLeave the restaurant after the main course and take pudding and a last glass somewhere with deeper chairs. Where to go in W1, what to order, and how to leave without breaking the spell.
Other occasions
In the old Mayfair sense, calling hours were the afternoons on which a household received visitors, and a footman carried their names upstairs. The Society keeps its calling hours around the clock...
Of everything the Society arranges, the dinner date is the evening it arranges with the most pleasure. Four hours at £1,800, shaped around a single reservation: something to drink beforehand, a...
A song from 1940 put a nightingale in Berkeley Square, and Mayfair has smiled about it ever since, because nobody has reliably heard one there. The hours the song describes are real, though: the...
The phrase is borrowed, and the Society uses it carefully. Here it describes an evening in which nothing feels booked. She is glad to see you and says so. She orders one dessert and two spoons...
A good many of the Society's guests reach Mayfair by air and leave it the same way, sometimes on a scheduled flight from Heathrow and sometimes from an airfield most people never see. Travel...
London's formal calendar runs through a handful of rooms in W1, and the Society's desk knows most of them by their seating plans. A charity gala in the vast Great Room at Grosvenor House. An...
Two companions, one guest, one evening: that is the whole definition of a duo, and the Society approaches it the way a good hostess approaches a seating plan. Two people who merely look well side...
Some of the Society's most enjoyable evenings are arranged for two hosts rather than one. The company is the same; the table is simply set for three, and the conversation has two people to delight...
The London Season never quite ended; it simply stopped announcing itself. Between the Chelsea Flower Show in May and the close of Glorious Goodwood at the start of August, the calendar still fills...
Nights out in clubland, arranged
Tell Cressida what the occasion is, what to wear and when it begins. She proposes companions who suit it and settles the rest in one thread.