From townandcountrymag.com
By Jill Kargman
I left the Upper East Side to spend 10 weeks living in the UK. Here’s what I learned
A Snob’s guide to the snobbiest city on earth must, of course, touch upon clubbiness. It’s cute how so much ink has been spilled on New York’s thriving new members’ club boom—London sniffs and says hold my beer.
Yes, there are the old school House of Lords-type places with gold-framed photos of dead white dudes, but since so many alleged aristocrats are actually what I call “Counts Without Accounts,” a chic new batch of clubs have cropped up with no crypt keepers rolling their eyes over the new guard and clutching pearls over assessments.
London makes NYC’s private club scene look like child’s play so I felt a bit like a bit like a fish out of water in terms of the Eton scene (which, as the summer progressed I realized was NBD). While the States has overlap with 5 Hertford and the Twenty Two, which offer global memberships, there’s also Mayfair’s Maison Estelle and its countryside outpost, Estelle Manor, giving Saltburn revelry, and hipster Camden club House of Koko, which offers expat memberships for considerably less than locals and has amazing food, a raging rooftop, and access through a secret staircase to the famed nightspot Koko, cutting the often-gargantuan line.
5 Hertford Street in London, a private club owned by Robin Birley, who recently opened Maxime’s in New York City
Outside the club world, the restaurant scene is adopting the same social sieve. Of course, there have always been eateries with hard-to-score tables, but how about a social ladder you have to climb where you have to dine four times before you get to the secret, better restaurant? This is precisely the trend taking off in London, which will undoubtedly trickle across the pond. I call it the Birkin Model of Dining.
For example, Urchin, the super-cool sushi restaurant that pops up at night in a Holland Park supermarket, is one of the toughest rezzies to land. But that’s just the first stop on a culinary Everest; once you dine at Urchin multiple times, you’re invited to attend a Tuna Fight Club, a weekly event with a 250-pound fish that gets cut up in front of guests and served in 10 courses. Newcomers to that then have to return for the “regulars” night, which presumably has even more bells and whistles.
Similarly, my favourite spot in town, The Fat Badger, is a speakeasy above the owner’s Notting Hill pizza joint, Canteen. You walk through a doorway, past a kitchen, up wooden stairs (past their rollicking pub with live music and one of the best grilled cheeses “toasties” I’ve ever had). Upstairs, in a charming, wood-panelled room, you get what you get and you don’t get upset. There’s not a menu in sight, and if you think everyone gets the same thing, you’d be wrong— regulars are offered the famed pork chops and virgins are not. You can’t sit with us! My husband had major food jealousy and somehow charmingly lobbied successfully for the off-menu specialty. We became more accustomed to the swanky food ladder as we learned more about each niche but with so many incredible places, it’s not our style to beg for tables (or handbags).
The dining room at The Park in London
There’s only so much jockeying a girl can do, though. As a Yank in London for 10 weeks, I saw this trend and instead looked to local friends for tips with easier access. Trinny Woodhall, the cosmetic and skincare entrepreneur, recommended The Park, Jeremy King’s new place, where breakfast is the move (or so I hear; I don’t eat breakfast!) . Gold in Notting Hill was recommended by producer Celine Rattray— he charred cauliflower the size of a human head is the best I’ve ever had!—and Kiyo Taga, Cartier’s head of special projects, loves The Summerhouse at Little Venice for seafood and Chisou on Woodstock Street for Japanese. My other fave restaurants are St. John for hearty British fare, Wiltons, a Mayfair seafood classic, and BRAT in Shoreditch, with a wood-burning oven churning out hot delicious bread and a burnt cheesecake for dessert that I still dream about.
When it comes to shopping in London, Jill says “there’s no place more joyful than Liberty.”
But there is a world beyond food. For shopping, there’s no place more joyful than Liberty, which is always my first stop in London—it’s so quintessentially British and I feel baptized as a temporary local the second I see the wooden-beamed Tudor ceiling. For New Yorkers who miss Jeffrey and Parisians haunted by the ghost of Colette, there is Brown’s, a concept store with avant-garde designer selects and one of the best jewelry cases in town; it’s tied with Dover Street Market. Naturally, there are baubles at Boodles, plus all the flagships we have in the U.S. lining Bond Street, but for vintage jewelry lovers, there’s S.J. Phillips on Bruton Street. For the gents, director Paul Feig recommends Turnbull & Asser for ties and pocket silks and Anderson & Sheppard and Kent & Haste for bespoke suiting. My late father loved his John Lobb shoes, and of course, while we have Ralph Lauren at home, the New Bond Street store has a fab flagship feel. For slightly less traditional, edgier male vibes, I love the offbeat tailor Beggars Run, nestled on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch.
None of the above places are cheap, so I’d like to take the opportunity to note that the best things about living in London truly were free: the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate, and the National Gallery. Walks in the immaculately manicured parks were heavenly and I had a pit in my stomach when it was time to leave. Don’t worry, I didn’t become one of those American jerks who said flat instead of apartment, but I did leave a chunk of my heart on the West End—and I can’t wait to go back.
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