The words posh and swank come to mind

Andrew has been doing some training sessions lately in Piccadilly Circus, which is just one stop down from my office on the Tube, so we've been meeting up after work and doing fun, city things. The other evening, we were walking through the city, vaguely looking for somewhere to get a drink. We happened across a nice restaurant called The Wolseley, where I had tea with Mommy this summer, and I thought we'd try there, but the doorman said the restaurant didn't serve alcohol and pointed us to the bar at Brown's Hotel nearby. He said he sent all his friends there and told us to give his name to the doorman and he'd make sure we were taken care of. Wondering if there was some sort of doorman club where they all get together and swap contact lists or something, we headed off toward Brown's Hotel.

When we got there, we were ushered into the lobby, where someone whisked our coats away and led us to the Donovan Bar. We snagged a little silver leaf-topped table with a space on the banquette and a comfy club chair and took in the surroundings. There were black and white photographs on all the walls and little silver bowls of olives and crisps on all the tables. The lighting was dim, and the noise was at a comfortably loud murmur. Everyone in the bar was nicely dressed, and there were people discussing business, catching up with friends, and meeting for first dates. We settled in and chose our drinks from the menu. I got a strawberry, prosecco, and grand marnier confection, while Andrew went with a classic G&T. The drinks arrived with our very own silver bowls of snacks, and we sat back and savoured them. They were delicious. After a few minutes, a server came and collected the bowls, and we were sort of sad because there were still a couple olives left, but not 30 seconds later, she came back with more bowls of snacks. We were pretty stoked about that, and we went through a couple more helpings. They were good; what can I say? Also, the drinks were outrageously expensive, and free bar snacks made up for that somewhat.

The best thing about the whole evening, though, was that we were able to enjoy ourselves and have a really good conversation. So often when we find a nice place we either get caught up in the surroundings or find ourselves distracted by other people's voices. Here, we were able to just enjoy each other. Lovely.