This Room’s On Fire
We’re back in town and we mean business. Straight off the hot mess express. Owning it. Cutting deals. Not just gadding about. Chop chop. We’re pumped up and pimped up between the plumped up poshness. In a basement next to the bright lights’ busiest roundabout. Sounds glam? It’s The Lanesborough’s Garden Room, darlings. Antiques and antics, busts and bust ups, teas and tiaras.
“A sky full of stars a room full of cigars,” postdebutante Annabel P wistfully murmurs before sinking behind the smoky haze into a Napoléon II club chair. The Garden Room’s impeccable Manager Neil Millington and his team are on it like a Selina Blow bonnet in this exclusive Cuba-on-Thames. “I’m going to keep the table as authentic as possible.” Bolney Estate Bacchus magically appears and reappears. Bad Pollyanna. Bad. And a legacy’s worth of Hoyo de Monterreys. “There are three cuts: punch, straight and V.”
Fresh from VIP seats applauding the thrillingly talented singer Noah Francis Johnson (the late Dodi Fayed’s brother-in-law) bring the (Soho) house down in White City (London not Tel Aviv), we’d glided past a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II en route to The Garden Room. Her painted lips parted: “We are so bemused.” An image of Salisbury’s Wilton House carried our reflection. People do say we’re a pair of oil paintings. “Welcome back!” chime Neil and his cohort each time we re-enter The Garden Room. Standing to attention of course. You can get the staff these days.
“When the party’s over and the lights go on …” sang Noah. This party’s only getting started so keep those lights dim!
