An escort to your Mayfair hotel room, W1K and W1J, on the minute you set

Six lobbies, named as landmarks

Most Mayfair requests come from six hotels. They appear here the way a driver would name them, as addresses and nothing else. No hotel in the district has an arrangement with the desk and none is needed, because she arrives as your guest, the same as a friend stopping by for a drink.

Claridge's on Brook Street, W1K 4HR, all art deco mirrors behind a revolving door. The Connaught on Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, set back behind its own forecourt and the shallow pool of water outside it. The Dorchester, W1K 1QA, and its smaller sister 45 Park Lane, W1K 1PN, both looking across six lanes of Park Lane traffic to the trees of the park. On Albemarle Street, Brown's Hotel, W1S 4BP, where the Donovan Bar is a gentle place to say hello. The Ritz on Piccadilly, W1J 9BR, where jacket and tie are expected in the public rooms and she dresses to match the room.

Mews flats and the serviced apartments tucked down the side streets count exactly as hotel rooms do. Tell the desk the building, which flat, and whose name is beside the buzzer.

Platforms within a short walk

Green Park sits about 4 minutes on foot from the Ritz end of the district, and three lines stop there: the Jubilee, the Piccadilly and the Victoria. Bond Street, about 5 minutes from the Claridge's side, brings the Central and Jubilee lines and the Elizabeth line. Hyde Park Corner is the Piccadilly line alone, around 7 minutes from the Park Lane hotels.

After dark she seldom uses any of them. Evening bookings travel by car, kerb to kerb, and a journey inside Zone 1 is already part of the fee, never a line added later. The stations are listed for your sake: for the walk home from dinner, and the question of which exit faces your hotel.

From confirmation to the corridor

Once Henrietta confirms, a Mayfair room is usually reached inside the hour, and forty minutes is common. The order never changes. You name a companion or describe the evening, then give your full name and the hotel. The room number follows when the desk asks for it. The reply carries the fee and a time to the minute, and the fee itself is handed over to her personally on arrival.

Two things stretch that window. Piccadilly slows to a crawl in the half hour after West End curtains fall, and on Friday nights after ten every doorman on Park Lane is whistling for cars at once. At those moments, write a little earlier, or name the hour you want rather than asking for the soonest.

Dinner bookings, four hours for £900, are easiest when the message lands in the afternoon, so a table and a companion can both be held. The ten hour overnight at £1,800 is best settled a day ahead.

Who writes from W1K and W1J

Guests on short, crowded diaries, mostly. A week at the Connaught built around meetings on Berkeley Square. Two nights at the Dorchester for a wedding or a board dinner. A long weekend at Brown's that wanted one evening less formal than the rest. A smaller group live here, in the mansion flats around South Audley Street, and prefer to entertain at home rather than wait about in a lobby. Two hours and the dinner booking are the lengths Mayfair chooses most often.

A Mayfair evening, drawn from the log

Seven o'clock: a guest checks into Claridge's after a day of meetings in the City. At half past he writes to the desk. Dinner nearby, a drink after, three hours in all, starting at nine. Two names come back with a time. She arrives at 20:55, dressed for the lobby, and they walk the few minutes to a table on Mount Street. Afterwards the Rivoli Bar at the Ritz is hushed enough for real conversation. Soon after eleven they are back on Brook Street for a nightcap from room service, and at midnight she leaves the way she came in, through the front door, with a nod to the man in the top hat.

Three who live a few streets away

Angelika, Luna and Samanta keep their home district inside Mayfair, so when one of them is free a booking here is at its simplest: she is already a short ride from your door. The others on the available list will come to Mayfair as readily, at the one tariff, so choose on the person rather than the postcode.

Not sure who suits the evening? Describe it to Henrietta, a dinner guest who enjoys a long table or company for a single late drink, and she replies with names who fit.

The next doors along

Mayfair runs straight into its neighbours. East across Regent Street is Soho and its boutique hotels, louder and later. South west past Hyde Park Corner sit the Knightsbridge hotels and the stucco squares of Belgravia. North west across the park, Paddington keeps its own cluster of station hotels at the end of the Heathrow Express. The desk and the terms are the same in each.