Ralph's Bar and Coffee, Mayfair

At his carefully stage-managed store on Regent Street, get sucked into Ralph Lauren’s universe of old money New England, More classy Kennedy clan Connecticut mansion than Trump Tower trashy, this equine-themed, deep tan leathery luxe presidential snug replicates The Polo Bar at RL's 5th Avenue Manhattan flagship. Post chukka chic sets the scene for all-day light breakfast - smoked salmon bagel, avocado toast etc; latte, cortado, macchiato, flat white et al; pastries and cold-pressed juices. Order any of a dozen wines by the glass with homemade soups, club sandwiches, salads, oysters, tuna tartare, crudités with ranch dressing, and meat and cheese platters followed by classic New York-style desserts. Well-tailored cocktails are always in fashion. We are drawn to a Gimlet made with Dorothy Parker gin that has ginger as well as the traditional recipe’s lime cordial. Despite its designer price tag, The Chairman - an absinthe rinsed tumblerful of WhistlePig rye, Cointreau Noir, maple syrup and, pomegranate - gets our vote. Itching to live the Lauren lifestyle? Ralph’s stemware and barware are all up for grabs, so long as you have the best part of £700 to splash on half a dozen lead crystal ‘Broughton’ martini glasses, that is.

173 Regent Street W1B 4JQ 7113 7450  http://www.ralphlauren.co.uk/category/index.jsp?categoryId=92479331

Sakagura, Mayfair

The Land of the Rising Sun’s national tipples of choice, saké - essentially wine made by fermenting polished rice - and its stronger cousin shochu - principally distilled from barley, buckwheat, sweet potato or sugar cane as well as from rice - are very much a niche taste among London drinkers. At this chic new Japanese restaurant, knowledgeable (Italian) staff enlighten you on the finer points of the drinks’ properties, heritage and culture. Sakagura (literally, ‘saké cellar’) stocks over 60 of the country’s finest saké, shochu and umeshu (plum wine) available by the glass, carafe or bottle at up to a sobering £1,000. Matured in cedar casks, creamy-sweet gekkeikan tarusaka, entry level at around £5.50 a glass, works well with assorted sahsimi, one of various bar snacks such as Wagyu beef, fresh velvety tuna tartare and tender chicken and burdock root skewers. Served with daikon (radish) and konbu dashi (savoury) dipping sauce, vegetable tempura that is dense and bland strikes the only dud note. The Japanese are also mad keen on whisky; a dozen or so indigenous distillations the base, here, for various highballs and well-balanced cocktails. At £13, Whisky Risky (Hakushu Distiller’s Reserve, saké, green Chartreuse, mint and yuzu bitters, pictured below) is a risk well worth taking. Saké, rather than gin, in a barrel-aged Nipppon-style Negroni makes for a lighter take on the Italian original. Japanese craft beers and spontaneous origami demonstrations are further reason to prop up Sakagura’s elegant destination bar.

8 Heddon Street W1B 4BS 3405 7230  www.sakaguralondon.com

MNKY HSE, Mayfair

For a taste of the Mayfair lifestyle at a fraction of the cost, book a space in the bar in the bowels of MNKY HSE (BYO vowels) -  a ‘new breed of dining experience’ that heroes modern Latin American cuisine. Set to a FNKY MNKY soundtrack that gets a lot lot louder as the evening progresses, this  glossy gaff recalls the sort of early Noughties NYC nightspot Naomi Campbell, trailing paparazzi in her wake, might have plagued while the Sex and the City ladies, mainlining martinis, held a wake for yet another failed relationship. Dress as Naomi or Carrie's mucker Samantha's MUCH younger sisters; MNKY HSE is a catwalk already strutted by 'porn heiress' India Rose James; Pips Taylor; Weegee wailer Talia Storm; Kyle De Vole (Rita Ora's stylist, apparently); Henry Conway (a party fixture dubbed "Mince Charming" by a sometime mate of mine) and male mannequin Harvey Newton-Hadyon - the sort of fluttery young things drawn, as moths to a Vapona Strip, to Mayfair boîtes such as this. Model muddles and mixes on a South of the Border tip include a coffee martini - made, Jalisco-style, with Jaral de Berrio Mezcal, mole bitters, dark chocolate and rose dust - and a fine £13 passion fruit spume-layered Negroni manqué that calls for Mezcal Gin Joven. Ron Millonario XO Reserva Especial fix, MNKY Business (top left) - a subtle, smoky rum old fashioned - is flamboyantly produced from a glass flask shrouded in mist and much hot air from its maker about “the concept.” Another signature is called Taking The Pisco: cue Ace of Spades Gold Brut Champagne, for those (rappers, footballers, hedgies, pretentious pricks) happy to drop £850 a bottle or £1,450 on a magnum of bling-bauble bubbles. For those with more sense than money, house (Argentine) white is yours for more modest £26. Baltic blondes with Rylan Clark glow-in-the-dark teeth -  veneereal disease is sweeping London - will be relieved: tasty, teeny taco-ettes and fiddly fishy bites won’t interfere with the contours of a body-con black dress... but they may batter a bloke's Barclaycard. 

10 Dover Street W1S 4LQ 3870 4880 www.mnky-hse.com

Smith and Whistle, Mayfair

Here’s yet another bar with yet another tall tale to tell about heroes and villains a twee theme that’s much more imaginatively executed at the likes of Evans & Peel, Mr. Fogg's and Uncle Seymour’s Parlour than at this glitzy, soulless take on a Jazz Age cocktail lounge. Apparently, inspired by fictitious 1920s sleuth Smith - a poor man’s Poirot - and gentleman/ vagabond Whistle, it’s the first of the hotel’s public spaces to be refurbished. Let’s hope owners Starwood/ Sheraton Hotels make a better fist of the potentially glorious Palm Court Bar than they have here. Bar food includes devilled whitebait; pork brawn and piccalilli and beer-battered fish fingers, chips and mushy peas (£10.50). Chapel Down vineyard’s Curious Brew ales on tap, plus a selection of good Scottish beers, will give tourists a flavour of Britain’s craft ale revolution. Jotted down on gumshoe Smith’s leather-bound notepad, £10 cocktails include Mayfair Mystery (Absolut, Jägermeister, Sezchuan pepper honey, elderflower and chilli). Apparently, Smith and Whistle would occasionally meet up here on the sly and trade tip-offs. With 1920s gin, lemon and honey classic, Bee’s Knees, incorrectly listed as 'tequila, goats cheese, pork crackling syrup and plum wine’  it looks like the crim' gave the cop a bum steer! Maybe it should be renamed Smith & Wesson, a reference to the weapon used to put the joker that dreamed up this trite tosh out of his misery.

The Park Lane Hotel Piccadilly W1J 7BX http://www.sheratonparklane.com

Terrace Bar at The Chesterfield, Mayfair

Being asked to list my top 10 London hotel bars is a challenge I find almost as impossible as declaring my favourite Sinatra tracks; there are just so many classics to choose from. I love hotel bars. Old and new. Odd, then, that despite The Chesterfield Hotel having been around for longer than that other old Mayfair fixture, Nancy Dell Olio, I'd never set foot in it until the other week when its PR invited me to its Gin and Tonic Experience. I'm not a massive G and T man - better Tanqueray 10, No.3 or (if I'm lucky) Beefeater Crown Jewel (a no-longer produced, rare red letter day treat) in a bone dry martini - but the Terrace Bar's table-side tasting / tutorial has to be one of London's best value deals, a steal at £22. Knowledgable staff suggest a flight of three top notch gins, picked according to the guest’s palate, each paired with its ideal tonic water and a sprinkle of its key botanicals and spices to accentuate the gin’s DNA: Martin Miller’s and Mediterranean Fever Tree, served with strawberry and crushed black pepper,one particularly harmonious marriage. Moreover, the Gin and Tonic Experience's custom-made presentation set (pictured above) is exquisite. As for the room the tasting takes place in, The Terrace Bar is the sort of place I imagine Lucky Lucan might haunt had Scotland Yard's most wanted Lord not vanished without trace on a murky November night in 1974, wanted for murder. All forest greens, froufrou swags, butch dark woods and tobacco leather and polished barmen, suave in crisp white tuxes, The Terrace Bar epitomises Establishment elegance; its style harking back to The Chesterfield's creation after WWII, when the hotel was formed from three town houses, each rich in history. Sir William Harcourt, The (Liberal) Chancellor of the Exchequer that, in 1894, introduced death duties ("boo!") was one former inhabitant, as was William IV's bit-on-the-side, the actress Dorothea Jordan, who bore him ten illegitimate sprogs in as many years; one of whom was the great-great-great-great-grandmother of the current MP for Witney - David William Donald "Call me Dave" Cameron. (Insert your own joke about Tory bastards). When the miserly monarch had the cheek to suggest a reduction in his brood mare's allowance, the exasperated luvvie handed the tight git a playbill on which her caustic scribble: 'no refunds after the rising of the curtain.' Far from fuddy-duddy, the Terrace Bar's cracking cocktail list mixes modern innovation and reasonably priced classics in equal measure. Served in a jolly yellow earthenware ‘hive’ over honeycomb ice (pictured below), the latest buzz is a summery vodka, limoncello and lavender flower sour, sweetened with honey gathered from the hotel's rooftop apiary’s 40,000 bumblebees.  Snacks - crab cakes and piquant welsh rarebit (offered gratis) - are on-the-money. Silver service is slick; efficient staff super-sweet and attentive. A pianist at a baby grand plays standards. "There's A Small Hotel"....and it's just "Too Marvellous For Words" as Sinatra sang it.

35 Charles Street W1J 5EB 7491 2622 www.chesterfieldmayfair.com

Cartizze, Mayfair

Tucked away behind New Bond Street, Lancashire Court's busy bars and restaurants feed and water Bond Street's spendy Fendi folk. Part of a pedestrianised cobbled ramble, the picturesque enclave's main alleyway is flanked by cafe tables that are always taken. The vibe is Continental: a buzzy backstreet on the Ligurian Riviera, perhaps. The clientele at Mews of Mayfair and at its new sister bar, Cartizze, opposite, look like they'd be equally at home in Portofino, sipping Cartizze's Bellinis - rhubarb, blood orange, and sgroppino (made with limoncello sorbet and lemon verbena liqueur). Two intimate Italianate salons, expensively got up in inky tones and jet marble with flashes of bling, are served by a smart Art Deco-style bar. Crystal glasses; Cristal chilling expectantly in a Champagne-laden fridge: such details speak volumes about the venue's target clientele. Speaking at at such a volume, I can't but hear, my barfly neighbours are a 50-something pair that look like they might run a BMW franchise in High Barnet - her barnet, all expensive blonde low-lights tumbling on to her still-perky La Perla bosom; he, all cashmere socks, Colgate confidence, and smarmy Swiss Tony forecourt charm. They are much looking forward to yacht parties at the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix. Well, who isn't? It's been simply ages since I went eyeball-to-highball with the Ecclestone sisters. Ah, Monaco! I've had more fun in Frinton, frankly, than in that sterile playground of the rich -  more Crass-than-class-sur-mer. But then, I'm not the sort of acquisitive type that aspires to a Bugatti Veyron, Bulgari pink gold watches and a neo-Georgian mansion on the Bishop's Avenue; the sort of trappings that would make me instantly desirable to a brace of  Prada-plumed birds perched at a high table behind me, I suspect. I try barrel-aged negroni. Good enough, but difficult to drink when a narrow-rimmed tumbler is filled to the top with ice cubes that keep smacking you in the kisser. Sicilian gimlet and Milano Torino (a Talented Mr. Ripley rinse that combines Campari, Martini Rosso and soda) appeal, and fine fizz Cartizze (£45 a bottle) - the bar is named after the ne plus ultra of Prosecco vineyards - works with San Daniele-wrapped figs or Orkney scallops with pancetta in brioche from a selection of snacks. A Chivas Regal sour (£12) is flavoured with liquorice and certain bartenders' currently trendy friend, truffle oil. I'm less certain. It looks pretty but smacks of, well, truffle oil. All polished threads and bella figura, Cartizze isn't aimed at me. I imagine its  pseudo-sophisticated dolce vita pose will appeal to another oily Italian, Nancy Dell'Olio...or her younger sister.
4 Lancashire Court, W1S 1EY   www.cartizzebar.com  @cartizzebar

The Whip, Mayfair

("Whip it! Whip it good.") 

The theme at this new cocktail spot above The Running Horse, a handsome Georgian tavern in Mayfair, is the Kentucky Derby circa that State’s most famous racehorse, Seabiscuit. Yes, I do know Seabiscuit never ran in America's most prestigious race: having once correctly answered 19 out of 20 pub quiz questions about horse races - much to the incredulity of Frank Skinner and Jonathon Ross on an opposing team - I'm a bit of a gee-gee fancier - and not in a Catherine The Great kind of way. A past relationship with a native Kentuckian also left me with a taste for the South's signature drink, the julep - as sipped by Scarlett O'Hara, if not Rhett Butler, a straight whiskey fan and a man after my own heart who was prone to declare 'I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening's over.' Of the seven advertised juleps here - whipped up by Peaky Blinder bartenders and served, comme il faut, through strainers in pewter cups - the bookies’ favourite is rye and raspberry. The rhubarb vodka version is a good each-way bet, but I'm not about to stake £10 stake on gin julep. Having had a sip of my mate's, I conclude it's lame. TBH I'd rather snog Clare Balding - not that she'd be up for it, I imagine. If your two lips don't do juleps, there's sours, fizzes, flips slings and tings built on a savvily edited range of premium spirits that includes citrussexy Navy Strength gin, Perry’s Tot. The Whip - like the Running Horse below, since autumn 2013 - is owned by James Chase of Chase Distillery and  Dominic Jacobs, a former bar director at Sketch. In a slow week for launches, it's my favourite newbie and although it's early doors, expect to find yourself jockeying for position at its bar by Grand National day.  
The Running Horse, 50 Davies Street, W1K 5JE 7493 1275 http://www.therunninghorselondon.co.uk

Lanes (of London), Mayfair

 (Doh! Hard to miss really) 

I'm invited to road test the lounge bar at refurbed restaurant Lanes (of London). We meet at The Dorchester - handily located next door, I seem to recall from the deets I've stupidly left at home. "Eurr Eurr' as the buzzer noise goes when some fool on Family Fortunes is asked to 'name a famous Arthur.' "Shakespeare." (That's a 'true say', as they say down Essex way, by the way). Stymied by a new mobile whose internet settings my Luddite mojo can't master and, with my chum's Blackberry's battery deader than a Monday night in Dartford, I'm in and out Park Lane's hotel doors like a £90-a-pop whore. "Do you know where Lanes (of London) is?" Nobody does. 20 minutes later, at Grosvenor House, a breakthrough. It's part of the same Marriott group apparently, only 'with not as many stars.' claims a staff member. This does not bode well. If the hotels of Mayfair were Premiership footie teams, I imagine Grosvenor House as Aston Villa - mid-table and a bit too full of Brummie businessmen in flammable tuxes for my comfort. Presently, we discover Lanes at the wrong end of Park Lane - the Primark end as I refer to it. All toffee tone, candlelit, leathery luxe (as a DFS customer unused to edgier five star sleepovers might put it), its drinks are more interesting than the decor. The big 'concept' is a selection of cocktails that introduce buzzier quarters such as Hackney and Dalston to tourists (although perhaps not the dozen Romanians we've just negotiated, begging in doorways outside). For Mayfair types whose idea of slumming it is W10, that postcode inspires amaretto, apple brandy and chai syrup idea, Portobello champagne punch (£13), and beetroot and gin West London ‘gimlet.’ Another success, if not an improvement on a straight vodkatini, is Grey Goose tahini martini: a nod to Edgware Road, oddly. Surely the Muslim mile is not exactly awash with alcohol? Decent beef sliders, samosas and vada paav in a bap, ceremoniously presented on a platter as if they were the head of John The Baptist and my name is Salome (which it might be if I ever decide to do drag), is essentially Whitechapel street food tweaked for the second most expensive square on the Monopoly board. Is Lanes an address I'll enter in my new phone? If I ever figure how to, maybe.

London Marriott Park Lane, 140 Park Lane, W1K 7AA 7647 5664 www.lanesoflondon.com

Mash, Mayfair

Even if you’re not intent on sinking your gnashers into half a dead cow MASH (the Modern American Steakhouse...only, via Denmark in this case) is a good spot for a drink. Bag a high stool and lock lips with well-made cocktails at its stand-alone bar whose old Yankee Art Deco grand hotel pose suggests a fantasy lounge Jack Nicholson’s character discovers in The Shining. Here's Johnnie Walker!  What to try? I'll go with Gottlieb’s favourite (rye, cherry wine, maple syrup, chocolate bitters and Anchor Steam ale, £9.75) if not popcorn alco-milkshakes. Try on a Caracas blazer for size (Diplomatico Reserva, apple liqueur, Galliano, caramelised pineapple and bitters) or enjoy MASH’s interpretation of the all-American (vodka) martini served with blue cheese-stuffed olives. Fine drinks, and the bar’s wide range of bourbon and whiskeys - many, such as opinion-dividing Buffalo Trace Experimental Oat Bourbon, unusual, controversial or rare - make it tempting to settle in for a session. Word up! The theme tune to 1970s TV sitcom M*A*S*H  may have held that suicide is painless; but rein in on killer New York sours. MASHed in Mayfair is a lousy look.

77 Brewer Street W1F 9ZN 7734 2608 www.mashsteak.dk

Based on my review from Square Meal. For more like it, visit www.squaremeal.co.uk

Mr. Fogg's, Mayfair

Flustered by my temporary DISCO malaise (see previous review), I am escorted to the relative calm of a new bar to help me come down. On paper, ‘Phileas Fogg’s Mayfair mansion’ is theme bar hell, but the latest jape from Charlie Gilkes and Co is not as arch as it sounds. In a witty cod-Victorian drawing room stuffed with exotica from the fictional traveller’s foreign adventures, staff, lookers all - Old Etonian Gilkes's ex-fags? - appear in duds from Flashman's days. Dapper chaps who might otherwise have become estate agents in Fulham, mix seriously pukka cocktails - Brooklyn, blinker, sazerac and whisky snapper (£10). Served on vintage cake stands, we eat toasted sandwiches of the type I'd theoretically rustle up - coming home late, squiffy and famished - on my Breville toaster, if only the bloody thing hadn't gone the same way as my George Forman Grill after gathering dust in a cupboard for years. Spookily, a footman appears with a drink before I can order one. "I thought Sir would appreciate a vieux carré?" Either he's psychic, or he's been reading my reviews: here's a New Orleans classic  Sir does very much appreciate. Should I poach Mr Flogg's flunky for my personal Passepartout? My drinking companion, editor of an in-flight mag aimed at Euro-yoof, is also down with his drink, a Bobby Burns, if not the company - decidedly straight and mainstream. "We're in Mayfair not Dalston, Dorothy!" Mr Fogg's, and its owners' other bars Bunga Bunga, Maggie's and Bart’s aren't aimed at me even if  I do (technically) live in Chelsea. Merchant banker-infested Earls Court is no longer the louche locale I was originally drawn to. Gilkes has the toff market all taped up, and (top) hats off to him for that. At least  Made In Chelsea dry cleans its clobber and washes under its oxters -  not something that can be said of the cruddy Clapton contingent.  Ollie and Millie's silly vanilli sort notwithstanding, this Mayfair blast is totes Fogg-horny.

15 Bruton Lane, W1J 6JD 7299 1200 http://mr-foggs.com 

The Luggage Room, Mayfair

Grosvenor Square doesn't figure much in my life: I've no desire to queue again outside Fortress America in the hope of landing a work permit (been there; done that; bought the t-shirt), and my chauffeur has never been instructed to programme the co-ordinates of gobby Gordon's Maze into my Bentley's in-car Bardar (been there; done that; wouldn't buy the t-shirt). Actually, I made up the bit about the Bentley. I'm a Beemer drop-top bloke (it fits more with my sad fantasy of myself as Frank Sinatra as Pal Joey, running around in an expensive trinket gratefully gifted for services rendered, singing The Lady Is A Tramp ). According to tonight's destination's PRs, The Bentley Boys are the inspiration for this brand new Grosvenor Square bar, The Luggage Room. Apparently, the Bentley Boys were car-crazy Mayfair socialites - forerunners of today's Made In Chelsea chumps, out to impress the 1920s equivalents of Milly, Silly, Caggy and Slaggy with acts of derring-do on the Great West Road. Some of the drinks - such as gin, grapefruit bitters and absinthe martini, Baron André d’Erlanger, are named after members of their set - the Baron, a banker at £14.50. Otherwise, try Hanky Panky, Penicillin and Aviation, similarly on-the-money retro rinses in  served in vintage stemware with complimentary salted snacks that verge on the addictive. I'm less hooked on a salmon caviar and sour cream scotch egg hybrid -  too cold, curiously bland, no improvement on the bog standard job, and too steep at £15 - from a range of trying-too-hard faffy-fiddly ideas presented in twiddly twee containers. The basement suite occupied by The Luggage Room was ("no shit, Sherlock?") once the temporary resting place for monogrammed valises belonging to grand old baggages in residence at the Marriott Hotel above. The rooms' tiramisu-tone art deco-inspired decor - think drinking inside a Vuitton steamer trunk lined in ivory silk grosgrain - is sophisticated and easy-on-the-eye. So too, its staff. I'm not generally much of a Marriott man - their Kensington gaff as soulless as any you'll find - but I know a good bar when I see one.Tweak the food offer, dim the lights, and I might just join the Bentley Boys' gang. 
London Marriott Grosvenor Square, W1K 6JP 7514 1679 http://luggageroom.co.uk/

Post-script: on a subsequent visit , the lighting had been so successfully tweaked, even those faces sporting the afterglow of Harley Street chemical peel will look as blemish-free as an airbrushed Kate Moss.

Piccolino Cicchetti Bar, Mayfair

Nowadays, everyone and his nonna is pimping cicchetti; savoury bites served with your traditional ‘ombra’ (a glass of local vino bianco) in Venetian bàcari bars. High street pizza peddlars Zizzi  tried it and now Piccolino in Heddon Street has jumped on the bandwagon with their new stand-alone basement cicchetti bar. God knows how many £4 arancini rice balls and £7.50 negronis they’ll need to shift before making a return on their outlay. For this flashy lounge feels less humble bàcaro, more Baccarat - as in poncey, pricey French crystal beloved of Arabic sultans of bling. Did its owners dine at Mayfair posho nosho, Cecconi’s, and post-post-prandial grappa, advise their designer ‘this’ll do nicely’? Marble-topped, mirrored Mussolini chic and bar stools toting enough pea green leather to keep a WAG in bags until Doomsday: the look seems strangely familiar. Shaken by Filippo, dapper in white tux, will £9 pear martini, served with fresh pear and Parma ham, be equally sharp? Sadly, no: cloyingly sweet, this one’s strictly for Haribo fans. Stick with Americano, Bellini, fine dry martini and top-notch Tuscan vino with your upmarket nibbles at this glitzy dame - think Nancy dell’ Olio via Ilkely and Clitheroe, two hotspots that host branches of this Made-in-Manchester Italianate chain.  21 Heddon Street 7287 4029 www.piccolinorestaurants.co.uk   

The Met Bar, Mayfair

At the time of this bar's original launch, New Labour's PRs were spinning Things Can Only Get Better. When Cherie was photographed looking dog rough at her front door on that momentous May morn, she looked pretty much like those prone to partying all night at the Met, the Mayfair hotel's private bar that quickly became one of the default late night hang-outs for the Cosmo-swilling fashion and muso cheerleaders of Saint Tony's Cool Nu-Britannia. Once, harder to crash than a Windsor's 21st birthday bash - is  'comedy terrorist' Aaron Baarshack, still locked up in The Tower, does anyone know? - The Met's brief reign was long over by the time Lehman Bros and the ensuing crash finally buried phoney Tony's successor's 'no more boom and bust' hubris in an avalanche of quantitative easing. Nineties party fixtures Meg Mathews, Fran Cutler and Ms Moss had taken their hubble bubble toil and trouble to steamier cauldrons, or in Kate's case, morphed into Gillian Taylforth and got married. Cue a rethink/ total refurb for the Met, which reopened this autumn. A sign of how 'over' it was, I'd twice walked past it before finally bothering to look in on the place. All black lava bar and bright banoffee and butterscotch swish, the old room is now open to non-members. 'Exclusive'? That's more The Box and The Rose, these days isn't it? Homage to its brief moment in the limelight, perhaps, Storm in a Tea Cup (Tanqueray, Aperol, orgéat, cacao and lime) is served to 32 B cups in a ...go on, guess!.... with a side of Turkish delight. Root Down (a Chase vodka mule) comes with beetroot purée;  so that's one of your 5-a-day sorted right there. There’s wine from £27 and Glaswegian lager, St. Mungo. Small plates include kedgeree cakes and ham hock terrine with beet and pickled walnut salad.  A daytime menu runs to posh fish and chips and Allen’s of Mayfair wild boar sausages and mustard mash. Glossy, polished and smart, somehow it feels like its soul was sold alongwith its old red interior, auctioned off for charity, on eBay. File under 'seemed like a good idea at the time' A bit like Meg's ex, Noel, and his Manc monobrow brother's band,  I suppose.

1 Park Lane W1 7447 1000 

http://www.metropolitan.london.como.bz/eat-and-drink/met-bar

Palm Beach Casino, Mayfair

Like my local dry-cleaners, casinos are best avoided if you don’t want to risk losing your shirt. The only chips I should ever handle are fried. As as nightcap opportunities, however, casinos clean up: their bartenders still shaking long after others have shut up shop. At the new DJ lounge at the Palm Beach Casino, ‘one of Mayfair’s most glamourous gaming spots’, they’ll mix you a martini until 5 am. Take a punt on lemongrass, espresso agave, chilli tarragon and pomegranate, toffee apple or even a Shropshire blue cheese martini: served with fresh dates, not the smartest call if you’re hoping to get fresh with a date. My gamble - Lime Marmalade Gimlet, badass liquid breakfast at £11 - pays off and, if Smokey Old Fashioned and a crafty fag sounds like you, there’s a heated snout-out  terrace-cum-Wendy House. £24 is cheap for Chablis by any West End standards and, if luck be a lady tonight, as Sky Masterson sings it, there’s Ace of Spades rosé at a bank-breaking £711 a bottle. The casino itself, divine art deco crystal palm chandeliers aside, could be a beige Home Counties hotel circa early Lorraine Chase. On which note, the lovely lady herself, wafted here, not from Luton Airport, but Camberwell. And no, she doesn’t order Campari and lemonade. 

30 Berkeley St W1 7493 6585  www.thepalmbeach.co.uk

Senkai, Mayfair (Now HAWKSMOOR AIR STREET)

The first section of a long snaking room, otherwise given over to Japanese-influenced dining, is allocated to Senkai’s lounge bar. I'm thinking 'Zen Week at Ikea' enlivened by a mural of what I take to be a Kyoto garden by way of colour. There is, disconcertingly, a back bar but no actual counter to dangle at. Still, working in Japan, I learned to expect the unexpected.  But this Honshu pretender, the replacement for the late unlamented Cocoon, is owned by the peeps behind Boujiis and Bumpkin, its stance more Made In Chelsea than Chiba Prefecture. Our Eurasian cocktails are pretty impressive all round...if somewhat ambitiously priced. £14 gets Senkai Manhattan with its maraschino and whiskey jelly globule lurking unnervingly in the glass like a blood clot on a killer mission. Szechuanita (£12) - a pomegranate margarita turbo-charged with Szechuan pepper-infused syrup - is a tasty blast and mingmei martini - Whitley Neil gin, cherry heering, raspberries and organic apple juice - garnished with a red chilli sliver on a floating basil leaf (for all the world, like something in the lady garden-like as drawn by a Magna porn cartoonist) gets the yin-yang balance right. For the intrepid, parsnip cup vodka (parsnip purée, coconut, vanilla, lemon and ginger in an absinthe rinsed glass) is an inscrutable adventure. There’s half a dozen shochu, wines by the glass from £7 and Champagne from everyday Möet to red letter day Dom P rosé at £420. From a selection of pricey bar bites, try pork and Jerusalem artichoke gyoza, rock shrimp tempura with red chilli mayo (£9.50) and pepper squid. The vast room is empty all bar six other punters. 'Senkai' in Japanese might translate as 'pure land away from the world.' Tonight, it's a land the world has pure failed to locate. 'People are all out on terraces  enjoying the Indian summer,' sighs one hopeful, smiley staffer by way of an apology. This begs the question; will Senkai be as sunk as a leaky junk with no clientele to speak of from May to September? 65 Regent Street, W1 7494 7600 http://www.senkairestaurant.com/

Read other reviews like this at www.squaremeal.co.uk

Bar 45 at CUT, Mayfair

I’m predisposed to like anywhere that serves martinis until the wee small hours. You’ll get a fine one as late as 3 am at Bar 45, the watering hole above Wolfgang Puck’s starry Mayfair steakhouse CUT. This smart mezzanine screams (new) ‘moolah!’ All tasteful, tonal toffee leathery luxe and American Psycho staff (as in Patrick Bateman-esque suits, not dangerous New York nutters), this foxy faux art deco den feels like the sort of VIP late night lounge wherein a Vuittoned-up vulgar Rooney might try to order vodka and Vimto, that or your dream cross-Channel ferry access-by-swipe-card Club Lounge; strictly off-limits to sad shellsuit-clad day-trippers trailing twenty crates of cut-price Kronenbourg in their wake. Sharp intake of breath: Aviation Violette (however well-executed)  at £16.50? Hello hedge fund high rollers! Similarly expensive is (Duke, Duke, Duke) Duke of Earl - a reference to a sour’s Earl Grey tea-infused Tanqueray base, not the Gene Chandler soul number - and the Hibiki Japanese whiskey and Aperol-based Rolling Fog Over Mount Fuji. If you’re rolling your eyes at the thought of blowing the cost of a flight to Faro on one fogging drink, Bar 45 ain’t for you.  Perhaps early adopters Brangelina, Kate ‘Get The London Look’ Moss and Tom - ‘a grand for a pair of loafers like the ones my Dad donated to Oxfam?’- Ford imagine civilians routinely blow such loose change on Grey Goose martinis ‘dahn’ the Dog and Dosshouse? I wager Bar 45’s gilded guests even wipe their bling bahookeys on Balenciaga bog roll...if such quilted luxury exists.

 45 Park Lane, W1 7493 4545 www.45parklane.com

Berry Bar, Mayfair

If you ever find yourself in Half Moon Street (although why you would, I'm at a loss to understand) you have two drinking options. There's the rather splendid Flemings Hotel bar, camp, quirky and inviting, and then there's the 'new' Berry Bar & Lounge at the Hilton London Green Park (mouthful or what?) I enter something that's part pub, part hotel bar moderne -well moderne back when John Major was fighting for his political life, perhaps. If you dropped me , blindfolded, through its ceiling, I'd think 'somewhere off the A42' - the type of depressing Crossroads clone where sad stationery reps book in and entertain hopes of picking up the bit of skirt they just spotted having second helpings in the adjacent carvery. A home from home for Alan Partridge, then? There's a selection of quality gin (Williams Chase, No.3, Sipsmith) as bases for cocktails such as negroni, Earl Grey tea martini and house creation ginger fizz (Plymouth, fresh ginger and bitters) at £7.95. Fizz, from £8.35 for a flute of Piper, an octet of wines from £20.35 (Sicilian white), afternoon teas from £14.50 and bites such as chilli squid, lamb kebabs and smoked salmon crostini sound commendable, but overcome by the sheer ennui of the room, I  call my soon-to-arrive date and suggest we convene at Flemings. If you've been in, Alan, let me know what you thought. On second thoughts....

Half Moon St W1J 7BN 7629 7522  www.hilton.co.uk/greenpark  

Flemings, Mayfair

Whether for afternoon tea with cupcakes in its cosy-cute library, or a tête-à-tête over Taittinger - from a selection of fizz from £10 a flute - in its semi-secret intimate basement bar, splashy boutique hotel Flemings is a Mayfair address to know. With its seductively-lit, mirrored overwrought interior in lurid cerise and jade, we're in 1950's kitschy pot-boiler territory - the sort of film set you half expect Bette Davis to waft onto in a cloud of Sobranie smoke, wearing a beaded shantung silk number and an eye-patch and dripping diamonds and vitriol. Unflappable, twinkly-eyed service is part of the appeal; camp staff entertain us over knockout martinis and pink fizz fit for bubblehead blondes. Go ‘long and luscious’ with Eau de Poire (a pear Collins) or demand a ‘glamourous treat’, a Precious Jewel, perhaps (Tanqueray 10, fig liqueur, lavender bitters and lemon) from a drinks list that includes various martinis at £12 and pinot grigio at £22.50. Canapes of mini fishcakes, pea and mint risotto balls, bresaola wraps andveggie options encourage lingering in a clandestine, subterranean speakeasy that's far removed from the West End hustle (Up until the mid-1970s, Half Moon Street was home to Mayfair's rent boys).  Just don't tell the suits! (Abridged from my Square Meal review) 

8 -12 Half Moon St 7499 000 http://www.flemings-mayfair.co.uk/