Weekend in London: Day #1

It was a friend from university's birthday this weekend, her 23rd (don't tell - she's still 21 as far as you're concerned), and she was having a bit of a party so I thought I'd escape to London for a weekend.  I love the countryside, make no mistake, but it gets a little boring when your closest friends live almost an hour away, and I was starting to miss the city (and the shopping) so I booked a hotel and hopped on a train down to King's Cross. 

I had just enough time to check into my room before running to Waterloo to meet another friend, who  had travelled up from "the country" (Devon, for those of you who don't speak Deep South) and was my date for the afternoon. There'll be more on him later, but I'd like to show you around one of my favourite London hotels first - St James Court.

photo: London St James

The hotel is situated on Buckingham Gate, a stone's throw from the palace, and has this lovely courtyard (on the right) with beautiful blue tiled walls, a fountain, and outside dining - making it wonderful for summer visits.  IHG are our go-to hotel company of choice (they run Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza among others) and this is my favourite hotel in London by far.  I love the traditional decor and the narrow Victorian hallways, and there are several fantastic restaurants and cocktail bars all within the hotel and it's residences.  I'm never usually there long enough to check out the Spa at 51, but I'm determined to make time for an Anne Sémonin facial and massage during my next stay.

I ran off to meet my friend - we're going to call him D - to find he'd had a nightmare on the train.  It was far too hot for a theraputic lunch, so we settled for champagne instead.  D claimed the bottle was a gift from his friend Mary, but unfortunately I don't watch the Great British Bake Off (check me out, name dropping television shows) so I'm ashamed to admit I had no idea who he was talking about.. 

We were sent flutes and an ice bucket, which was kind of the hotel as we hadn't purchased the bottle from them, and caught up (and compared transport woes) while deciding what to do with the rest of our day.  D wanted to pop to Regent Street to check out the Gatsby Collection by Brooks Brothers so we rang them up, asked if they could squeeze him in for a fitting, and headed for the Tube.  D prefers taxis, but I'm a Londoner now (or at least I will be soon) so the Underground is my new best friend. 

Brooks Brothers did all the men's clothing for Gatsby, so you can buy almost every single item seen/worn in the film in from their collection: unfortunately it's almost all sold out, and can only be purchased from their Regent St. store or on the American website.  It wasn't all bad news - they had a sale on, and Amer (D's fitting man) was a fantastic laugh.

I couldn't get enough of these hats..

It was only after buying his prohibition stash that D realised he didn't actually know how to fix the bow-tie I'd convinced him to purchase, so Amer sat down and gave us a final lesson on his knee.. 

Among the purchases were a new pair of Church's loafers which, irresponsibly, someone had opted to wear without socks.. which worked for me because it prevented any further Bond Street shopping at all (although, retrospectively, I should have nipped into a shoe shop - I'll catch you up tomorrow) and I skipped back to my hotel in the sunshine to get ready for dinner. 

Here's a very quick instagram of my outfit: the Nadine Dress from Malene Birger's 2ND DAY collection.  It's from SS12, so you can't buy it in the shop now, however you can find it online in quite a few places.  I don't have a photograph of D, but he wore his Church's loafers with Levi's, a Jack Wills shirt and Hermès belt.

I shan't go into details regarding evening activities (and I didn't want to be rude taking photos all evening!) but we opted for dinner at the Bank restaurant within my hotel as we'd forgotten to make reservations elsewhere. I ordered a martini and the staff were kind enough to make D his favourite off-the-menu cocktail; an Old Fashioned, since you're asking. Prices were reasonable - it was fairly easy to stay under £100 - and both food and cocktails were excellent. 

Reservations here, or contact Bank Westminster directly by phone on 0207 630 6644, but if you're staying at the hotel it's relatively easy to walk straight in.  There's another restaurant in Birmingham if that's a little closer to you.

photo: Individual Restaurants, Bank Westminster

As for D, I don't know if I'll be seeing him again, but I did have a lovely evening. In the morning I headed over to Laura's flat in Islington (after a short detour via Mayfair & Hyde Park), and I'll be blogging the rest of my weekend on Thursday.

I'm going to have to apologise again about the photo quality, I'm far too forgetful when it comes to putting my camera in my handbag.