The order of things
Every dinner arranged here has two parts that must line up: a table somewhere at a particular hour, and a companion who is free for the hours around it. Guests often try the second part first. They write to ask who is free on Thursday, wait for the answer, then look for a restaurant that can seat them at the time the answer implies. Frequently it cannot, and the whole exchange begins again with a different evening.
The reverse order is quicker for everybody. The restaurant is by far the harder constraint: a good room in Belgravia on a Thursday has a handful of tables, and once they are gone they are gone. A companion's evening is much more flexible. Settle the table, and the message you write afterwards can usually be answered in a single reply.
Why the house does not book for you
The table is yours to reserve, in your own name, exactly as it would be for anyone you were taking to dinner. This house never telephones a restaurant for a guest, and it has no understanding with any dining room in London. Partly this is tidiness: a reservation in your name belongs to you, can be moved by you and involves no third person on the telephone. Partly it is discretion. The fewer people who know about an evening in advance, the better the evening tends to be.
What Tamsin will give you, if you ask, is an opinion. Describe the sort of evening you want and she will name two or three rooms, say which is quiet on the night you have in mind and tell you which the women on the list like best. That is advice rather than a booking, and it is given freely.
What the finished message contains
Once the table is held, the first message to the house can be very nearly complete. The restaurant and its street. The time of the reservation. Whether your companion should meet you there or come to your hotel first so that you walk down together. The length, which for dinner at a held table is usually four hours at £900, or two hours at £500 for a supper with nothing after it. And one or two names from The Hang, or a few words about the evening if you would rather Tamsin chose.
A message like that can be confirmed within minutes. The reply names her, gives the minute she will arrive and states the fee, and the evening is settled. Compare it with a message asking what might be possible on Thursday: that one needs three more exchanges before anybody knows anything, and by the third the table you wanted has gone to someone else.
Belgravia, where the rooms are small
Belgravia rewards this discipline more than most of London, because its best dining rooms are small and their regulars book early. The upstairs room of The Thomas Cubitt, on Elizabeth Street, is one modest space above a busy pub. Amaya, tucked into the Halkin Arcade just off Motcomb Street, is larger and full most nights. Pétrus, on Kinnerton Street, is built around a glass wine room in the middle of the floor and fills with people who knew weeks ahead that they wanted to be there. The dining room on Beeston Place has regulars who would never dream of leaving a table to chance.
None of these is difficult with a few days' notice, and most are close to impossible at six o'clock on the evening itself. The stations are Sloane Square, Victoria and Hyde Park Corner, but in Belgravia it is nearly always quicker to walk between the white stucco squares than to go underground, and the walk from Eaton Square to Elizabeth Street is part of the pleasure of dining here at all.
The time on the reservation and the time she arrives
Her hours are counted from her arrival, not from the time printed on the reservation, so decide where the first half hour should go. If you want a drink before dinner, ask her to arrive thirty minutes before the table, at the bar or at your hotel. If you would rather sit straight down, have her come ten minutes before, so that you are not left alone with the bread. Say which in the message and it will be arranged to the minute.
She is handed the fee in person when she arrives, in the figure Tamsin confirmed, and after that it is not mentioned. The bill for dinner is yours as host, as it would be with any guest you invited, and it has nothing to do with the fee and never includes it.
Names for an early table
Several of the youngest women on the list are also the most practical about tables. From the early twenties drawer, Lea lives in Belgravia, treats it as a village, and usually takes the corner by the window at the Star Tavern on Belgrave Mews West, a pub with a fire and no curiosity whatever about who anyone is. She is at her best in a room of six rather than sixty, which describes most of Belgravia rather well.
Bianka lives a short walk away in Knightsbridge, cooks Italian seriously at home and orders for a table without taking it over. Molly is warm first and clever second, likes a late dinner and prefers a plan that can bend, so she is a good choice when the table is at nine rather than seven. For a table that has to be held weeks rather than days ahead, the note on the Table Lumière on Park Lane is the extreme case of everything described here.
Filed under: most of the names in this piece are also hung in the early twenties drawer of the the cabinet.
Questions this piece raises
Write anyway, with two or three rooms you would accept and the times each one offered you. Tamsin will match a companion to whichever works and tell you which of the options she would choose herself, and why.
No. The reservation should be yours, in your own name, like any dinner you host. It keeps the evening simple, and it means that if anything changes on the day you can deal with the restaurant directly without anyone in between.
For a neighbourhood room in Belgravia on a weekday, a day or two is usually enough. For the better known dining rooms, and for any Friday or Saturday, allow a week or more. For a single celebrated table, allow several weeks and have a second choice ready.
More of the long view
Put the long view to use
The evening this describes is one message away, and Booking shows how plainly it confirms.