City of London, London
Staying over in London, certainly as an adult, meant I was away for business. When I was a kid, I spent summer holidays staying with one or another of my sisters in West London. Growing up in Bedford, just 36 minutes by train, meant London was where we popped to for a few hours or day at most. So I don’t recall ever staying in London just for fun, other than when there’s a flight to catch the next day.
Staying in London at a scrumptious hotel for our 10th anniversary, as an alternative to the big trip we would have wanted, made me feel like I was away. London, rightly, feels incredibly international and staying in the City, where I once worked early on in my media career, felt very different to the normal day trips filled with Fortnum’s or walks through the big parks or popping to Harrods with a smattering of coffee stops along the way.
For our first night, we booked Rabot 1745, Hotel Chocolate’s restaurant in Borough Market - yes in a market. We see this more and more across the world, cheaper spaces being taken up by quality brands when space is at a premium. It’s also a great way to try out an idea and this one is a chocolastic success. I poured over the menu seeking chocolate where it shouldn’t be. I like the idea of white chocolate in the mash but in the end, plumped for the hake (minus the mussels) marinated in cacao pulp. Other chocolate came in the white chocolate purée with the cauliflower. But really, much like school dinners, we came here for the dessert. I chose their signature mouse trio on which they’d rather delightfully iced an anniversary message. Every forkful was as good as you would expect and the service matched.
This is a busy place for celebrations and treats and our 2 courses for two plus a little drink each came in at £90. If you’d said I would climb the stairs to go up to the restaurant in the market and spend nearly £100 three decades ago, I would have thought you one mouse short of a trio.
For the anniversary day meal, we chose Afternoon Tea, a choice I’m electing for more for the important days as it’s generally going to delight and I don’t have to starve myself all day in anticipation for a special meal at night. There is more on the tea at a design-focused Rosewood hotel coming up. Suffice to say, they came up with the goods and other than in Tokyo, where there were no takeaway boxes, so we stayed an extra hour/another pot of tea to intake more than was needed, this was the most amount of sweet treats I’ve seen.
We had two pricey and rather ordinary breakfasts around the corner at a branch of Beeny Green and the final one in our own South Place Hotel, which was altogether more luxurious than sitting on a balcony, but both came in at £20 per head.
As we were traveling onto Edinburgh with limited luggage space, shopping was out of the question but I couldn’t resist the Penhaligons outlet shop hidden in the back streets of Islington. What’s more fitting for a ten-year anniversary than two bottles of unisex fragrance (for us, anyway)?
I’ll just carry if we can’t safely pack them! They sold them without boxes and the assistant clearly loved her job as she helpfully made suggestions and let us smell EVERY fragrance before we decided. And she tied a beautiful Penhaligon’s scarf after first spraying it with a different scent onto the bag. I’m gutted when it managed to break free and fly off down Upper Street, somewhere between our visit to Frequency for coffee and Uniqlo, never to be seen again. Hopefully, it landed in front of someone who appreciated it.
As we’d had our anniversary meal during the afternoon, an Uber boat down the Thames seemed a nice way to end the day. It’s such an easy way to be able to pop onto the river by just using the old Oyster card. Last time I’d experienced it during the day so this time we waited until dusk. It’s a stunning, ever-changing skyline anyway, but that much more magical at night. Landing in Greenwich, I felt a little peckish and craving a savoury after the afternoon’s sugar. A standard joke is that we balance out the extravagant food experiences with a Mcdonald’s. Luckily Greenwich has one now. Chicken nuggets and fries for the win.
Apart from the two outstanding meals, the focal point of this trip was the experience of stopping to see a changed Financial District, rather than just shooting through the area as I have been for the last three decades, just to get to the next tube/appointment/meeting place. An area that would have been dead after 6pm then was bustling with young life. Just on the border of the Square Mile, it was wonderful to see what (I think) was the office building a young me entered every day about 9.20am to work at a career-changing media job.
I would have loved what the area has become.
Yes, we spent more in 48 hours in London than we normally do during five days of luxury abroad. I’m grateful we had the opportunity.
August 2021
