Standing sentinel at the intersection of Davies Street and Brook Street in Mayfair, Claridge’s is London’s most storied hotel. It began life as Mivarts Hotel in 1812 and was subsequently sold to Mr. and Mrs. Claridge (who owned next door). Re-built in the late 1800s and further expanded by Doyly Carte in the 1920s, it has been evolving ever since.
Let’s go in. Through the revolving door with its canopy designed by Oswald Milne to resemble a jousting tent, up the steps—how many, three? And onto the chequered black-and-white marble floor. To your right, the staircase with its woozy zigzag pattern swoops up to the mezzanine. To your left, reception—leave your troubles outside—and the best connected concierge in London (as noted in Sofia Coppola’s latest movie, On The Rocks). Opposite, next to a portrait of an imagined Mrs. Claridge, an art deco glass and metal door (which clanks reprovingly if you try to push rather than pull it) leading to the Fumoir.
This shadowy jewel box of a bar is dimly lit and deeply plush. There is no smoking now, of course, except in the photographs on its leather-lined walls in which Ava Gardner (pictured at the Savoy, but no one minds, it was once part of the same hotel group), French actress Anouk Aimée and model Evelyn Tripp enjoy a last cigarette and remember a time when the world looked better in black and white. Although The Fumoir shimmers with Lalique glass and original etched mirrors designed in the 1920s by Basil Ionides, it is, in fact, a fantasy conceived by the brilliant Thierry Despont in the mid 1990s.
One night in 2011, a plot was hatched here. Over martinis on velvet banquettes (what colour are they? Purple? Aubergine? Plum?), someone—it wasn’t me—came up with the idea that I should be Artist in Residence for a season. Good things happen to good people. I began making drawings (from life) of the hotel’s celebrated guests: Diane Von Furstenberg, Christian Louboutin, Dame Joan Collins, Sir Paul Smith and Sarah Jessica Parker among them. I also began my love affair with the Fumoir, which, over time and in certain circles, became known as my office. I drew and interviewed there, filmed and photographed, entertained and was entertained.
Lighting is key. Installed at Table 4 (which before the space was reconfigured was Prince Phillip’s favourite corner table in the restaurant), the Fumoir’s shady ambience elicits conversation and confession: I have been asked to Ibiza by a swinging couple; signed a stranger’s divorce papers (it wasn’t amicable); commiserated with a lady who had come to London to buy a hat and have a glass of champagne following the death of her son, ”The thing is, David,” she said, “he had everything. And nobody has everything. Not for long.” Late one night, I got into conversation with two gentlemen of uncertain age, drinking margaritas. The one with an eye patch turned out to be Joe MacGrath, a legendary writer and director brimming with stories about working with Orson Welles and Peter Sellers.
It’s a bar that encourages anonymity and keeps your secrets. I once sat next to Kate Moss for an entire evening without realising; I graciously received compliments from Rami Malek (who had seen my work in Claridge’s gallery) before it dawned on me that I was speaking to the Oscar-winning star of Bohemian Rhapsody. And I can still feel the frisson of looking up and seeing the unmistakable profile of Kelsey Grammer (that’s Dr. Frasier Crane!) silhouetted against the bar, as though for all the world it was Cheers. Not everybody knows your name in the Fumoir—you might be incognito—but you are among friends.
What to drink? That, I leave to you. But I would actively discourage a third martini. A friend of mine, a seasoned and well-balanced drinker, indulged himself and, unable to get home, had to book a room, making it the most expensive cocktail on record.
Now let’s go to the Carlyle, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a neighbourhood of large lattes, small dogs and a short walk between Ladurée and Carolina Herrera. An elegant pinpoint sky-scraper, the Carlyle opened as an apartment hotel in 1930. It weathered the Great Depression—just—and soon became a high-society favourite, without ever losing its raffish air (John F. Kennedy maintained an apartment there, as does Mick Jagger today).
