By their thirties most people have settled how an evening ought to finish, and the four companions on this list are no exception. Margo is 31, Nancy and Violetta are 30, and Sonya is 32. What they share is composure, the ease of women entirely comfortable in their own company, which makes them very easy company for anyone else.
The desk knows each of them best by her last order of the night.
Margo drinks a single martini at Dukes Bar in St James's, mixed at the table from the trolley, and stretches it across an hour. She settles a room rather than fills it, lives in Knightsbridge, and prefers long bookings planned a day before, three hours at £700 or the overnight at £1,800. She rarely takes a single hour, and White Cube in Mason's Yard is where her afternoons tend to go.
Nancy ends near where the evening began. Sushi at a counter off the piazza, a walk through the market buildings once the crowds have gone, and a last drink at your hotel on the Strand. She is easygoing enough that a full restaurant never spoils anything, because she always knows another one round the corner. She is simple to place midweek, and for a weekend she likes to be asked by Wednesday. Curvy, golden blonde and blue eyed, she swims fifty lengths most mornings and arrives with the glow of it.
Sonya keeps early, complete evenings, five until ten and never later: an hour at Floris choosing a single bottle of scent, then an early table somewhere hushed in St James's, one last drink at your hotel. The £400 and £500 rungs, ninety minutes and two hours, suit her best, and guests with a six o'clock alarm are grateful for her timing.
Violetta prefers four hours, the £900 dinner date, and likes the restaurant named in advance. Often it is The Berkeley, after she has chosen you a novel at Waterstones on Piccadilly in the time it takes to find the lift. She can say nothing through an entire course and still be the most interesting person at the table, and her dry jokes follow you home.
Each keeps a clear pattern, and working with it gets the best evening. Margo wants the plan the day before. Violetta wants the restaurant named. Sonya wants the evening finished by ten. Nancy wants a weekend request by Wednesday. Send those details in the first message and Henrietta can usually confirm in one reply, at whatever hour you write.
No performance, no hurry, and very little small talk that is not worth having. These four suit the second night of a long visit as well as the first, and the long stay booking explains how the desk keeps one companion free across several evenings.
Nancy stands on the blondes list, Sonya among the petite and toned companions, and Margo and Violetta with the slim and slender. The late twenties band holds fourteen more names, on exactly the same rates.
Choose from this list by name, or write two lines about the evening, and the desk offers whoever is on shift.
