Park Chinois

Park Chinois occupies a Berkeley Street townhouse that Jacques Garcia dressed as a 1930s Shanghai supper club, all hand-painted silk, lacquered screens and amber light. The ground-floor Salon de Chine is the room you see first: floral banquettes, a backlit honeycomb ceiling and a stage where live performers play through dinner. Downstairs, Club Chinois is the late-night counterpart, a subterranean room of gold quilted columns and a polished dancefloor where resident DJs play Tuesday to Saturday until 2am.

For us it is Club Chinois that does the work. The DJ booth, the dancefloor and a club-grade sound system make it a rare central London room built for music rather than retrofitted for it, and the late licence lets a set run properly. Around it sit smaller rooms for more intimate nights: the Opera, a curtained booth for eighteen that looks down over the Club Chinois floor; Salon Rouge, a red-damask dining room seating twelve; and Salon Noir, nine seats around a circular ebony table beneath a marble fireplace. The Wave Bar adds a cocktail lounge for receptions before or after.