Top: A night of drama at Sloane Square's Royal Court Theatre. Above: Forget the diet on a trip to calorific Ottolenghi on Motcombe Street. Top right: The opulent Food Hall at top shopping destination, Harrods. Right: Sip champagne in stylish surroundings at Harvey Nichols' Fifth Floor bar in Knightsbridge
and newly-opened Champagne Bar to try out the theory. Revived, you can then stroll through the young fashionista’s favourite store and find every conceivable label and accessory from Anoushka jewellery to Lanvin’s latest creation. I am now officially in Knightsbridge.
Medieval knights owned a bridge here over the Westbourne, a lost tributary of the Thames. Before going off to war, they would cross it to get a blessing from the Bishop of Fulham some miles to the west. Just past Knightsbridge tube station is
winding Basil Street where two of the area’s most sumptuous twin hotels, the exquisite 12-room Levin and 49-room Capital nestle side by side. Owned by hotelier-vintner David Levin, interiors are luxurious, the staff friendly. Or come here to eat: The Levin offers The Metro, a tiny brasserie with
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seasonal menus, while The Capital’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant earns its laurels under chef Jerome Ponchelle. Emerge from here and one store takes your
attention: Harrods, quintessentially British from its present 1905 terracotta façade with the gilded name to its doormen dressed in signature racing green. Undoubtedly the most famous store in Britain (it even has its own entry in London’s A-Z), Harrods began in 1849 as Burden’s, a small grocery store with a staff of two. When Prince Albert’s South Kensington museums encouraged building in the area, Charles Harrod
expanded the business and by 1909 it was ‘The House That Every Woman Knows’. Bought by Mr Al Fayed in 1985, Harrods now boasts over 3,000 staff, including bagpipers, and it covers four acres of prime land. You can find everything from pearls to potatoes, fine fashion to fresh oysters. This is the great emporium par excellence. Up above the fashion floors, past the
memorial dancing bronze of Dodi and Princess Diana, there’s the elegant Georgian Restaurant for afternoon tea and the Terrace Bar, with rooftop views. I couldn’t leave the area without a quick
bus trip down to its southernmost streets at the east end of Sloane Square. David Meller’s superb kitchenware shop is unmissable and for evening entertainment, so is the often controversial Royal Court Theatre, famous for kitchen sink plays in the 1950s. Beyond the theatre is Eaton Square, where
actress Vivien Leigh once lived and Elizabeth Street. Today’s ladies-who-lunch dine in the elegant Thomas Cubitt gastropub. Jeroboams, the wine merchant, still delivers by bike and basket; there’s a specialist baker’s, Tomtom for cigars and coffee and Henry Stokes & Co, an atmospheric stationers that has been on this site since 1861. I felt that I had come full circle in time.
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