Cognac, cigars and corruption at 51 Buckingham Gate
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 1 August 2011
This story of nocturnal corruption begins – like so many tales of a good night out – at lunchtime.
The Prodigal Fool was due to meet a fellow hack in the City that fateful day for what he was expecting would be a buttoned-up business lunch. The Fool knew he was in trouble though when – on arrival at the restaurant and meeting said journalist – the first words he heard, delivered with machine gun speed and sniper rifle-like singular intent, were “I’ve cleared the rest of my afternoon! You don’t have anything else planned do you!? Chablis alright with you? Waiter!”
Three hours and a similar number of bottles of Chablis later, the Fool emerged into the unforgiving City sun with an afternoon of work now piled up on his desk and the prospect of a rather challenging evening ahead of him.
Whereas his friend planned nothing more elaborate than crawling onto a train and being whisked back to the debauched Home Counties from whence he came, the Fool had another rather important engagement to attend before his day was done: he’d been invited to the opening of a new terrace at the opulent 51 Buckingham Gate hotel, Taj Hotels and Resorts’ London flagship property.
And so it was that your editor-in-chief, half-cut to put it mildly, found himself slowly, unsteadily scaling the stairs that lead up from the hotel’s courtyard to the new terrace two stories above it. Foremost in his mind as he did so, was the hope – the very desperate hope – that when he got to the peak, we might find a jug of mineral water and perhaps a bowl of crisps to make some small start on soaking up the gallon or so of Chablis swishing around in his not inconsiderable stomach.
It was not to be.
On arrival, he was welcomed with a smile by Bars Manager Daniel Crebesse (president of the UK Bartenders Guild no less) while a large glass of Rémy Martin Cognac was placed in one of his hands and a smoldering Cohiba Esplendidos cigar slipped between two digits of the other.
It’s at moments like these that you glimpse the true mettle of a man and we’re proud to report that, where lesser men might have floundered (indeed, as we’ll learn later in this tale, at least one did flounder), the Fool simply raised his game. He embraced both the glass and the stogie in his well-manicured yet masculine hands and walked confidently over to his friend Spanky to kick-off the evening in earnest. That Cognac was the first of several we quaffed – eh, tasted – that night and we also had occasion to puff our way through a couple of Cohiba Behike, Medio Tempos before the night was out.
We had a delightful few hours at 51 Buckingham Gate. That’s no surprise given the excellent booze and smokes on offer but it’s also due in no small part to the venue and its staff. The new raised Rémy Martin Cognac & Cigars Terrace is planted with jasmine and provides a vantage point of the Courtyard garden below, with its close-up of the historic Shakespearean terracotta frieze that sweeps around the townhouses. Its staff were delightful and, all in all, it was a charming place to spend a few hours of drinking, smoking and mingling.
And what a crowd to mingle with: we caught up with old friends from QP Magazine, the charming crew from Sidhu & Simon who represent Panerai in the UK, a professional intuitive (a modern day palm-reading gypsy as far as we could tell) and a self-styled cad and man about town who also happens to edit one of London’s leading online lifestyle magazines. More on him later.
In fact the whole thing was so enjoyable that, when our hosts finally evicted us from the terrace, we couldn’t resist the lure of one last cocktail in the courtyard below.
Two or three sips in, Spanky announced that he was off to the loo (he has a habit of announcing the obvious) and sauntered off.
Ten minutes later, he had not returned. We were delighted.
Twenty minutes later, he still hadn’t returned. We were mildly concerned.
Thirty minutes later we were about to send out a search party when Spanky finally emerged from the hotel bathrooms with a rather sheepish character in tow. In turns out that Spanky had discovered the aforementioned lifestyle magazine editor green in complexion, body shaking and hiding in a lavatory cubicle quietly whimpering to himself. The cigars, the Cognac – the competition – it seems were simply too much for him!
We gloated for a short time of course but soon followed the only gentlemanly course of action open to us: ordered the little fellow a Martini while we talked him into accompanying us to the Wolseley for a late supper followed by a visit to one of Hammersmith’s more exotic entertainment venues…
The Courtyard at 51 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AF, Tel: +44 20 7769 7766
Cognac, cigars and corruption at 51 Buckingham Gate
A few weeks ago, we visited the new terrace at the 51 Buckingham Gate hotel, smoked cigars, drank cognac and utterly corrupted both ourselves and the editor of one of London’s leading lifestyle magazines. Here is the whole sorry tale.
2 Responses to “Cognac, cigars and corruption at 51 Buckingham Gate”
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Straight Up
1 August 2011
Well done. I am glad you rose to the occasion. I would expect no shortcomings from you.
Straight-Six
1 August 2011
A friend called Spanky, an afternoon-cum-evening of hedonism and excess and an exotic entertainment venue? Makes for a mighty fine cocktail in my book. Need to get my derriere UK-side to sample this charming terrace…