The Queen ate at The Stafford hotel, so we booked a table in her honour
St James’ Street near Green Park Tube is heaving with tourists, but turn onto Little St James’ Place toward The Stafford hotel and you enter a private enclave where the racket of the capital’s buses, taxis and tourists cannot be heard.
Here you’re in St James proper, amongst the type of discreet private roads no-one would ever venture down unless they knew. “It’s round one corner, and then another,” my waiter says, making hand movements to show how complicated the route to The Stafford hotel is for first-timers.
The Queen rarely went out in public, but when she did, it’s no surprise that she dined at The Stafford.
But when you know, you know. The Queen rarely went out in public, but when she did, it’s no surprise that she dined at The Stafford. It’s a post-dinner amble of no longer than a few minutes and you’re at the Palace. (Who am I kidding thinking the Queen walked down dark roads at night?)
Here, the Windsors clink glasses outside of their gilded cages without fear of being bothered. Immersed within the tight arrangement of narrow 17th century streets, The Stafford has probably London’s oldest wine cellar, dating to the same period.
The receptionist I spoke with told me the last time the Queen dined her, she booked the Duke of Argyll suite. It has windows backing onto the road, but when only two or three people per hour amble down here, she presumably felt safe behind the translucent curtains. On the wall there was a picture of what I think was a very proud-looking peacock, but other than that, the room was luxurious but plain. Her Majesty must have let the food do the talking.
Sitting down in the American Bar, a member of staff tells me he last saw Her Majesty here nine years ago, but other royals love the hotel too. Prince William – now the Prince of Wales – popped in with Mike and Zara Tindall for a martini this summer. He had it stirred, not shaken. “No security, they sat in the courtyard.”
The American Bar is all about cocktails. One of ours was served in a glass engulfed by a metal frame shaped like a galaxy and another was neon-lit in a glass holder shaped like a rocky mountain, which made my drink look like lava. Bars across London try to pull off this kind of thing and it mostly feels tacky, but here head mixologist Salvatore Megna sounds so genuine about his concoctions that I’m happy to sip from a spaceship-shaped glass. Don’t tell anyone.
From the menu, The Sonus was electric with mezcal and tequila and the Aurora was the best of the ‘so refined it doesn’t taste like alcohol’ cohort, which to be fair was the whole menu. (So refined that we had five each.) The food is pristine spins on American junk food. Did Her Maj love a chicken drumstick?
I certainly did, especially with light and painstakingly cooked batter with a gentle and consistent crunch and a clearly homemade buffalo sauce with pristine tang. Elsewhere for starters, we enjoyed short rib which was so slow cooked it felt as if the meat were clinging to the bones for dear life. For mains a lobster roll had bright and cheery chunks of lobster topped with dinky circles of caviar. We’re at The Stafford, so lobster topped with caviar goes as standard. The chicken parmigiana was splattered across the centre of the plate like a contemporary painting.
The American couple at the bar ordered a cocktail that came in a coupette glass with a foot-high stem. “I just want to go like this,” my dining partner said, doing a karate chop motion with her hands and looking at the precarious stem being carried on a tray.
Full of life and exquisite American food, we ambled the two minute walk to the Palace to walk past the floral tributes.
We bit our nails as the skinny, vulnerable thing journeyed dangerously across the room. We had a banana split while looking out to the heated outdoor area where Wills necked his martini. In a zipped up coat, he’d look like any other punter. Beaming stupidly, we looked like anything but, but full of life and exquisite American food, we ambled the two minute walk to the Palace to walk past the floral tributes.
It was 1am and there were still hundreds huddled to pay respects, which made us feel incredibly privileged. We had paid our liquid tribute to the Queen in private, just moments earlier, around the corner at her foodie hideaway.
Book dinner at The Stafford hotel by visiting the website