Flemings Mayfair

Thirteen Georgian townhouses on Half Moon Street, dating from 1734, make up one of London's oldest hotels — Flemings opened as a private hotel in 1851 and has stayed in the same family for more than four decades since, one of a dwindling handful of independently owned addresses left in Mayfair. A 2016 refurbishment reinstated much of the original plasterwork and fireplaces rather than replacing them, so the marble checkerboard of the reception and the sash windows onto Half Moon Street sit alongside a contemporary hand, not in spite of it.

Ormer Mayfair by Sofian, in the basement under chef Sofian Msetfi, holds a Michelin star and quietly does most of the entertaining: three private dining rooms run off the restaurant, from the six-seat Tyburn Suite through the Half Moon Suite to the oval table of the Clarges Suite, each panelled in the same dark wood and olive velvet as the room beyond. Upstairs, Manetta's Bar recreates its 1930s incarnation, when it was a haunt for the literary set Agatha Christie later wrote into her novels — rose gold, jewel-red velvet and portraits of the era's regulars line a room built for a slow drink rather than a crowd.

The Drawing Room, opening off reception, does double duty as the hotel's afternoon tea and its largest private space: hand-painted panels, an Assouline library either side of the marble fireplace, and a capacity that clears the restaurant's private rooms when the whole space is taken. For a DJ-led evening the draw is the scale actually on offer — four distinct rooms rather than one banqueting hall, each small enough to feel held.