Vesper Bar

The Vesper Bar is billed to have drawn influence from James Bond – yep, the clue really is in the name. The writer, Ian Fleming, is said to have been a regular at The Dorchester, and the hotel even gets name-checked a few times in the books. But, it was not 007 that popped into my head when I walked through its gilded doors. No – it was Cinderella.

And not, perhaps, for the more obvious reason that in this part of town I do get the overwhelming feeling that I’ll turn into a pumpkin and be swiftly booted straight back to Bethnal Green, but because my enduring first impression of the interiors was that someone had brought Cinderella’s infamous gown to life. Fairytale blues abound in the opulent space, anchored in a design that spotlights the off-kilter and ethereal; scalloped edges, Palladium leaf ceiling, and a multitude of nods to the interiors style of the 1930s, the year The Dorchester was built.

The words ‘sexy’ and ‘glamorous’ are bandied around so often in relation to hospitality venues, but this truly is a bar where you could imagine love affairs beginning and ending in hushed corners, clandestine conversations taking place over the low-lighting and perhaps even a world-recognised big-screen spy slipping in for a quick cocktail at the bar. Head bartender Lucia Montanelli has designed a menu with a focus on the classic and the timeless, with its pièce de résistance being the Vesper Martini – an extra-boozy mashup of the classic, with three parts gin, one part vodka and a dash of sherry, finished with a spritz of house lemon essence. There’s a great take on a martinez – with house-made Boker’s bitters, and a selection of more adventurous tipples that celebrates the bar’s ‘personality’.

A hotel bar – particularly one in a hotel of this stature – should serve as a timeless escape from the distractions of the outside world. Drinks should be opulent, interiors beguiling and time should cease to function for however long you are within its walls. It’s a specific tonic for the rabid relentlessness of everyday life – at the pub down the road you might need to throw a few elbows to order a sad, overpriced pint, but in the hotel bar, your drink will appear in front of you as if by magic. The Vesper bar achieves all that and more – it softens you up for when you eventually have to walk out of its doors and back into the mess of it all, and makes turning back into a pumpkin seem just that little bit easier.