london: week seven

Here is what I had on my to do list for our last week in London: Pimlico Road shopping, Alfies Antique Market, Nomad & Ned Hotels, lunch at Dean St Townhouse, The Saatchi Museum, and The John Sloane Museum. I was also planning to write about how to wear thick, wool sweaters underneath a winter coat and highlight the extensive holiday decorations along Regent St, Oxford St and Bond St. I did not get to any of those to-do’s and I am gonna bypass those basic but relevant topics because it turns out I have better material. 

On our last Monday night, we were invited to dinner at Mike and Breid’s house – our new friends from our weekly padel clinic in Hyde Park. After living in a foreign country for six weeks, being invited to a meal in someone’s home felt really special. Not knowing that we had attempted and failed at experiencing a Sunday Roast the previous night, Breid served a very traditional English roast beef with potatoes, yorkshire pudding, cooked carrots and peas, cheesy cauliflower and, of course, gravy. My husband pretty much lost his mind over this meal and was not shy about having seconds. We had the most lovely conversation and were grateful to meet new friends.

During our last week in London, I got to play tennis twice and both times with my friend Amy who was visiting from North Carolina (who also went with us to the Chelsea game the previous week.) If you don’t play tennis, you may not relate to this, but both Amy and I were shocked and so beyond excited to have played fun, competitive tennis while vacationing abroad. For whatever reason, finding a tennis game while visiting other cities (even US cities), is almost impossible. In addition to enjoying the play, it turned out that three of the four women I played tennis with in London, know people I know from either California or New York. I played tennis with five or six different women In New York while we were there the last two fall seasons. And, one of the women I ended up playing with in London is very close friends with two of the women I played tennis with in New York. Seriously – what is the likelihood of that? The world is so small – especially the tennis world.

After tennis on Wednesday, I finally met another person who was living in the same building as we were. For weeks, my husband and I had commented to each other how we never saw anyone in the lobby or the hallway and had no idea if we were the only ones staying in the building. When I finally met another resident in the lobby and got into the elevator with him, I could not help myself but to talk to him. Lucky for me, he was friendly and up for meeting a random woman, and he agreed to come over to our apartment and meet my husband. From that moment, our last three days in London went into turbo mode.

Turns out my new friend is a well known Hollywood director and producer and had lots of amazing contacts in London. We are still not sure why he wanted to hang out with us but he immediately told us about The Magic Room, a private room at The Devonshire Pub, located adjacent to our apartment building. We walked by The Devonshire everyday in awe of the crowds there Monday through Saturday starting at 3:30 pm until closing. We would never have known about this private room if our new friend didn’t clue us in and tell us what to say to get them to let us in and give us a table. Apparently, well known artists like Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi regularly show up and perform so we were hopeful for star power but ended up enjoying an unknown artist do an excellent acoustic set. Honestly, just being in on the secret of The Magic Room was a huge highlight for us.

The next night, my husband, my friend Amy and I went to see the new musical “The Devil Wears Prada” in the West End. This show was sold out and there was a lot of buzz about it because Vanessa Williams plays the part of Miranda Priestly and Elton John wrote the songs for the musical. Sadly, the musical fell flat. In an era where many of us have seen some impressive, innovative theater (like “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Come from Away”), I can easily say do not bother with this show. My husband’s comment immediately after the show was, “2005 called and wants its musical theater back.” 

After the show, we were supposed to meet up with our new BFF for a drink at a private bar at The Chiltern Firehouse in Marylebone. Once again, we had no idea that there was a private bar at this very popular restaurant and, until that moment, were happy to have been granted lunch reservations on a weekday. Unfortunately, our new friend got food poisoning and was unable to join us but he very kindly called the bar and reserved a table for us. Once there, we were treated like royalty and tucked into a table where we had an excellent vantage point for people watching (one of my favorite past times). We stayed seated and observed the gorgeous, hip crowd, entertaining ourselves by playing an impromptu, made up game of “costume or outfit?” where we debated whether people were dressed for Halloween or just dressed for a night out in a club. By 2 a.m. we were spent, not entirely sober and spoke only in British accents for the entire cab ride home.

If you are paying close attention to the names, dates and place, you might realize that we met our Hollywood friend on Wednesday and did not actually get to hang out with him until Friday, our last day in London. He took us to a private club,  Maison Estelle, for lunch. Unlike The Magic Room and the private bar at The Chiltern Firehouse, this club we HAD heard of before. We were aware that London has several private dinner clubs and, having no obvious way to gain access to any of them, we threw a shot in the dark and sent an inquiry email to Maison Estelle. No surprise here – we never received a response to that email. In a small victory for clueless, suburban empty nesters, we were proud to be welcomed in for lunch while being fully aware that our host was the key to making that happen.

Our lunch lasted five hours – possibly the longest and most intriguing lunch of my entire life. We had an amazing conversation as you can easily do with someone who has led a truly remarkable life, knows a ton of celebrities, is an open book and has never heard any of your own best stories.  We ate and drank in the Italian restaurant within the club and then moved up to the roof bar for post lunch/pre dinner/happy hour drinks. Our marathon meal only concluded because our friend had to get to work for a night shoot and that gave us just enough time to quickly pack and prepare to leave the following day and then head back over to The Magic Room for more music and an amazing steak sandwich. 

The very last hours of our seven week experiment living in London were spent with our new famous friend back at Maison Estelle in the basement nightclub and then back at the private club at The Chiltern Firehouse. At one point, my husband and I were lounging in a conversation pit looking at each in disbelief about where we were, who we were with and what we were doing. For the second night in a row, we found ourselves at a great table in a private bar looking around a room filled with young, stylish people – feeling old and irrelevant but also energized, fascinated and lucky to have the experience. As we landed back in San Francisco, my husband sent a text to our new friend: “We landed and are headed to our quiet suburban house. On the ride home, we both independently thought, ‘I wonder what Joe was up to tonight?’ Thanks for making our last week so memorable!”