If you don't fancy Minako, there's always this lovely. On second thoughts, maybe not!
On the Park Lane Hilton’s 28th floor, velvet rope-keeper orders ‘No coats in the bar!’ ‘What? Not even Dior couture?’ We’re expected to queue with plastic thickos that look like the cast of The Only Way Is Essex dressed for the TVChoice Awards in association with Daz. Tonight, the portals to Galvin At Windows - that’s WAG backwards - are besieged by backwards Wag-wannabes and mouthy chavs, sample comment: ‘These new ’eels are proper raping my feet.’ Classy! We leave. Soon after, WAG’s PR contacts me. A ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ is to be held there. So, here’s to flammable acrylic extensions going up with the bonfire. This is my second recent Hilton encounter, both duff. The bar at the chain’s new pan-Asian joint, Minako, twenty-three floors above Marylebone flyover, also boasts great views but, tonight, its guests are less fake Gucci gutter-glam, more how I imagine people who are big in Inkjet Toner World might look. We sip fair-ish Thai Bellinis but give up on banal bar bites. This was formerly Nippon Tuk whose tired 1970’s decor has been dragged into a new decade... the ‘80s; nice in a Krystle Carrington way. Presently, a Minako minion corners me to explain ‘the concept’: like I’m 17 and just off the bus from Clueless? I’m rapidly going off Hiltons, guilty pleasure, Paris, notwithstanding.
