So, you ask yourself with bated breath, what's the best London club, excluding Brooks, Whites and Boodles?* Good question, best for what? General ambiance, food, architecture, location, sheer clubishness? All of those things and more, surely, come together into one harmonious whole. So what's the best? In this short post we offer up a few old favourites to compare and contrast.
The NatLib (National Liberal Club). Faded glory meets absurdly high ceilings in what some describe as the "best preserved Victorian interior in London." Perhaps it is, and it does have an outstanding terrace overlooking the Embankment Gardens where you can smoke and drink. Food? Most reasonable if fixey.
The East India Club. On St. James Square and more formal than the shockingly slack NatLib. Enjoy the American Bar, which has faux American timbers, wonder at the history of the storied Waterloo Room and enjoy an excellent Sunday lunch. No kidding, it's good.
In & Out. Once housed in grander surroundings, the fabled In & Out still ain't shabby, being housed in Nancy Astor's place on St. James Square. Congenial and well-priced bar food at the Goat Brasserie, an awesome courtyard, where you can smoke, and the place is beautiful. Very much open on the weekend.
Farmers. I love the Farmers Club. It's just a couple of addresses down from the NatLib on Whitehall Place and isn't grand architecturally. But it is well put together in a country house kind of way, has rooms, delicious food and a great if small terrace where you can watch the NatLib yahoos whoop it up 500 yards away. Book a room while you can, they're in demand.
Reform. Fabled site of around the world in so many days, Reform's a cut above, with beautiful architecture, delicious food and a perfect garden which it shares with the Trav and Athenaeum. It also has rooms, which is great but... Madonna filmed there. I asked a member, "Didn't Madonna film here?" And she looked at me, "Hardly our finest moment."
So what's the best Club, who wins the shootout? It all depends, because they're all good in their various ways. But let's hold fire, Team LSP is visiting the UK in September where we'll put these establishments, and several more, to the acid test.
Rus in Urbe,
LSP
*I used to love Boodles but that's another episode.
1 comment:
I want to see a Texas Club review (too). I'm headed to the Middle East in ten days and that means I'll miss the clubbing in Old Blighty. But a man has to work.
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