BAR EIGHT
8 MOUNT ST
MAYFAIR
LONDON
On a stunningly sunny day I passed Bar Eight in full stride while looking straight ahead towards the timeless Connaught Hotel as something caught my eye, I swiveled on one foot, turned back towards the door of Bar Eight.
The interior looked intriguingly dark against the building’s red brick exterior clocked in sunlight but not foreboding just fascinating.
“What do we have here?” I asked a very tall good looking doorman who should have been in a film and probably thought the same.
His eyes peered down his chiseled features, as I was too big to be ignored but he didn’t reply and he opened the door and I slipped through.
“Hello, how are you?” asked a very nice well-dressed young lady exuding confidence but not remotely worried I had arrived way before lunch had started.
My eyes swept the interior like lasers picking up on huge slabs of white streaked terracotta Italian marble, dark rich floors, a long stylish bar and expensive bar stools with brass back spokes.
“I love those bar stools!” I exclaimed wondering if I needed more stools for a house somewhere and would they sell me a couple? A ridiculous idea.
“Oh, thank you. They are from Italy I am so glad you like them” she said stroking the matching chairs which I had not yet noticed.
On a corner table was a couple of well-dressed European men deep in conversation over an espresso thrashing out some kind of deal. It reminded of the days when all the interesting deals were done between people in restaurants and not via emails from boring offices.
“I’m here to see chef. I have the black truffles,” I said patting the bag and smiling like I was delivering him gold.
“Is he expecting you?” She asked.
“Not exactly but if you give him my card please I will only take a few mins of his time” I also want to meet and see chef and get down those perfect dark granite stairs under that hugely expensive slab of orange marble.
Very New York City I thought, where the Italian restaurants love that minimal, expensive, classic, modernist look.
She disappeared and I looked around further soaking up the ambiance of Mayfair’s relaxed, laid back, understated chic.
Opposite was the Sexy Fish Restaurant full of girls with big hair, big rings, big boobs, stiletto shoes but Bar Eight was cashmere, white silk, strings of pearls, and classic Armani, a restaurant for thinkers, people with specific conversation, who had a point and a message.
“Please come down stairs chef can see you” She broke my reverie and my fascination with starched white empty tables.
“Hello, my name is David,” said a very nice looking man with large blue eyes, a fine skin and delicate white hair. I studied his face while he recounted his history, saw his attention to detail and courage, but he still looked so cool after lifetime in a tough business. He seemed relatively unscathed.
I trotted around the kitchen behind him, toured the downstairs bar, peered into the larder, read the menu, looked at photos of delectable dishes and forgot the sun outside.
The lunch service was fast approaching but just like sitting next to a delightful passenger on a long haul flight, the arrival now seemed irrelevant.
“Here take my business cards” and he gave me few, which I put into my case.
“I like using truffles” he said and I repacked my case and zipped it up.
We walked up to the ground floor and the glass front door where the doorman stood with his hands behind his back like a grey granite statue. I had forgotten about the outside world or that I should be in it.
“We shall meet again,” I said and I looked at those fabulous bar stools again which begged for sophisticated customers.
I had arrived curious and a stranger but now I was leaving a confident member of the family…even if they didn’t recognize it.
“Good bye” I said looking up to the tall granite model featured doorman who opened the door as I left, and he grunted in a Russian accent.
“You don’t look so cold any more either,” I thought stepping out into a hot sun that could have warmed him up and the huge slabs of Italian marble.
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