The Churchill Bar, Marylebone

"I'm afraid the bar is closed for a private party tonight" says flunky guarding its doors. "Good! I'm at the right place, then. Now find me a seat, please," I say, pushing past the nose he's just looked down. Maybe my whistle doesn't cut the mustard (serves me right for even thinking about Zara's sale rail) but if I could afford Savile Row tailoring, The Churchhill Hotel wouldn't be my first choice - or even tenth choice - when it comes to blowing a wad on wasabi sake-tinis (assuming its bar can run to one). Tonight, I join bona fide members of the Churchill dynasty, here to reccie its lavish refurb - chic minky taupe low-key luxe - and to greet their most famous relative, newly appeared on the bar's smoking terrace - a windswept affair, open onto Portman Square so passing sans culottes can see how the other half lives.  A dubious life-size bronze of Winston, parked up at a table, depicts the ex-PM indulging in his favourite pastimes - planning how to stick it up Herr Hitler's jackbooted jacksie, drinking like a fish, and smoking Hunters and Frankau Cuban cigars that cost more than a conscript on a Normandy beach would have earned in a week (had he not been riddled with bullets two minutes after disembarking). Yes, he died so you could  enjoy a Romeo Y Julieta Short Churchill (£18.50) with your Glenfarclas 1995 (£45) or cocktails from £12 at this 5 star Hyatt. Try Trafalgar Sour (Colonel Fox’s London dry gin, pear and greengage liqueurs with apple and lemon) or Ale Flip, a 17th Century revenant that combines cream, chestnut paste, spiced rum and goose egg to interesting effect. A rum and Calvados milky mix, meanwhile, is named after 1940s French film star Jean Gabin, the sort of stylish chap,I imagine, that would have felt more at home at Claridges - my destination after I load up here on free smoked salmon and cream cheese balls here and make sniffy door whore organise transport.

Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill, 30 Portman Square W1H 7BH 7486 1255 www.london.churchill.hyatt.co.uk 

Bodo's Schloss, Kensington

As 'with-it' teenagers, my sister and I were condemned to draw lots to decide our holiday school  reciprocal visit destinations. She was dispatched to rural Austria; I to Sainte Maxime, just across the bay from swinging Saint Tropez. Hanging out with Johnny Hallyday and Bardot at Les Caves du Roy, aged 14? Bring it on! So began my love affair with France. My sibling's tales of her host, frosty Frau Frumpenlumpen (think Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love), mandatory cold showers, not so hot local talent, and dumplings and schlag (cream) for breakfast, put me right off the first nation to sign up to Herr Hitler's world vision. Consequently, I have never set foot in the land of the Edelweiss - as immortalised by Vince Hill through the hi-fidelity speakers of my grandmother's Grundig gramophone, granted pride-of-place in its polished teak flip-top cabinet. Sloaney ponies, however, adore Austria - regularly bunking off to Kitzbuhel where, shickered on schnapps at chalet parties, they hope to do Udo the randy ski-instructor. This then, explains the decor at Bodo's Schloss, the new adventure playground from the chaps behind Mahiki - another magnet for misbehaving toff-totty and their public school boy admirers; the elite heirs to Osborne and Cameron who will one day be in charge of running (down) what's left our once great nation. Cheesier than fondue, this ersatz chalet bar/ club/ diner - all pine cladding, kitsch gingham checks and hunting lodge gubbins - is straight out of Maplin's circa Gladys Pugh. 'Tonight, campers, we'll be getting you all Matterhorny when we crown Miss Lovely Legs and Alpine Twin Peaks of 1960 in the Heidi Hi bar... located to the right of the Olympic-sized swimming pooo-ul.' The place is rammed. The boys preen, giving off that inbred air of entitlement that says they will never know the price of a pint of milk, or what it is to have to struggle to find the down-payment on a modest two-bed starter flat in the sticks ('You expect me to live in FULHAM? No way, man!') Shark-eyed trust fund Tarquins encircle the bait - lissom lasses presumably shipped in by charabanc for 'model night', as our waiter describes it. My date, a bona fide glossy mag cover girl, looks unconvinced. 'There is a big market for hand models, I suppose.' But let's not be sniffy, here. The vibe is electric - free shots every time a cowbell clangs see to that - and everyone is having a ball on a dance-floor at the back of Lonely Goatherd's cabin. I'm in no shape to throw shapes: full of strudel, und schnitzel mit noodles served by Hansel and Gretel in lederhosen and dirndls, I'm gluhweined to my chair. No matter; the party comes to me in the form of the Von Trapp Family Players' deranged cousins who dementedly bash out Village People hits on their glockenspiels and oompah band horns. Cover girl, whose mascara is running, 'hasn't laughed this much in ages.' At £8.50, cocktails are fair, but avoid the Saint Bernard, a bit of a dog if you're not big on sickly-sweet. Instead, order Ice Castle - ‘a never ending supply of our signature (vodka, peach and passion fruit) cocktail topped with up to 10 bottles of Dom Pérignon’ - sold to the coot with the Coutt's card at £5,000!  If I were him, I'd love this joint too. Bodo's is wunderbar if you’re Made In Chelsea out to get schlossed. Hip Dalston Guardianisti, however, might pray for an avalanche to hit Kensington. 

2A Kensington High Street, W8 www.bodosschloss.com