Molly, when Bruton Street turns the music up

Molly arrives the way a good record starts, quietly for a bar or two and then all at once. She is curvy, 164 cm, and her hair is a long tumble of dark brown waves that she refuses to tame; the brown eyes glint. For evening she chooses bold colour and a sense of humour: a red dress with a clean line, gold hoops, heels she can dance in until two. She is funny before she is anything else, and she knows it.

Warm, playful and confident, she turns strangers into friends and ordinary evenings into stories told for weeks afterwards. Mid twenties; English with a quick, teasing humour. Her laugh carries across a busy bar, and nobody ever seems to mind. House music is the great love, the soulful late-night kind, and she knows which DJs are worth crossing London for. Craft cocktails come next. Vintage cars, surprisingly, come third: she can date a Jaguar by its headlamps and holds strong opinions about chrome.

The late room she loves in Mayfair is Hakkasan on Bruton Street, where the lighting is low, the cocktails excellent and, towards the weekend, a DJ takes over and the room changes pace. Hand her the menu and she will order for everyone, and the table is better for it. On the walk there she will stop at the car showroom windows on Berkeley Square to admire whatever gleams behind the glass, and she will have told you its history before you reach the door.

Soho is home and her hours are late, from ten into the small hours. Berkeley Square is a short walk from her; one message to Cressida and the night is set.