The street, end to end
Walton Street is a narrow, gently curving street in SW3 that runs from the Knightsbridge side, a few minutes from Brompton Road, south west to Draycott Avenue. For much of its length it is residential, with painted terraced houses between the shops, and it carries far less traffic than the roads on either side of it. On a map it looks like a short cut. In practice it is a small neighbourhood of its own.
The shops close early, most of them small and specialist, and they leave their windows lit after hours. The restaurants sit among them, mostly modest in size, several of them long established, and many the kind of room where the same staff greet the same regulars year after year. By half past seven on a weekday the street has the settled, slightly private air of a village high street after dark.
Why an early table suits it
Walton Street is not a late street. Its rooms are small, its neighbours are residents rather than bars, and by eleven most of it has gone quiet. That makes it ideal for the first half of an evening rather than the last: a table at seven or half past, a long dinner with nobody hovering for the table, and a short walk home while the night is still young.
An early table suits a first meeting in particular. The room is not yet full, conversation does not have to compete with anyone, and if the evening is going well there is still time to walk down to the King's Road or across to Sloane Square for a last drink. If it goes quietly, it ends at a civilised hour with nothing lost by anybody.
It suits guests at the end of a working day, too, who would rather eat well than go out. A Walton Street dinner asks nothing of anyone beyond turning up, and that is a rarer quality in London than it ought to be.
The rooms, and why the desk names them when you write
This corner of SW3 has long had a fondness for Italian dining rooms, and the street and the blocks around it still keep a handful of small, long running restaurants, along with the odd neighbourhood pub that takes its dining room seriously. None of them is large, and in several of them booking a particular table is worth the trouble.
Restaurants change, though, even on a street as settled as this one, and the desk would rather name the right room on the day than print a name that has since closed or changed its kitchen. When you write, say it is Walton Street and roughly what you would like to eat, and the reply will name a room that suits the hour and is open that night.
Book the table under your own name. Put the restaurant and the time into your message to the desk, and the companion will either join you at the table or call at your hotel beforehand, whichever the confirmation specifies.
Brompton Cross, and the walk home
At the Draycott Avenue end, the street opens onto Brompton Cross, where the Fulham Road meets Brompton Road and Draycott Avenue. Michelin House stands on the corner, opened in 1911 as Michelin's base in Britain, its front covered in glazed tiles and its windows showing the Michelin Man in stained glass. It is one of the most cheerful buildings in west London, and worth a pause on the way past, especially when it is lit.
From there the hotels are close. Two small house hotels on Cadogan Gardens lie a short walk east towards Sloane Square, and a third on Sumner Place in South Kensington is a few minutes west. From the Knightsbridge end of the street, the hotels on Sloane Street and around Knightsbridge are five minutes away on foot, which is about as far as anyone should have to walk after a good dinner.
The walk itself belongs to the evening. The streets between Walton Street and Sloane Square, Cadogan Square and the red brick blocks around Pont Street among them, are quiet, well lit and handsome in the dark, and ten minutes through them is the right length for a conversation that has not quite finished.
Arranging the evening
A dinner of this kind sits naturally under the unhurried evening, which is about ease and conversation rather than an itinerary. Two hours at £500 covers a dinner nearby and the walk home. Three hours at £700 allows a drink first and a slower finish, and it is where most guests settle once they have tried a shorter evening.
Send the desk your hotel, the date, the start time and how long you want, and add the restaurant if you have already booked one. If you have no companion in mind, describe the evening instead: the note on describing the evening explains what to include so the desk can put two names forward with a reason for each.
The reply confirms everything in writing, the figure included, and the companion is handed her fee in person on arrival. If you are meeting at the restaurant rather than the hotel, the desk will suggest a few minutes at the hotel first, so that the only piece of business in the evening is done before anyone sits down.
Who the desk sends to Walton Street
Guests who begin with the blondes list will find Cindy on it, and she is the obvious first name. She lives in Chelsea, knows which tables are worth waiting for and carries a fund of restaurant gossip that makes any dinner pass quickly. Short notice is often possible with her, since she is five minutes from most of SW3.
Thea, caramel blonde, lives a few streets north in South Kensington and prefers a supper to a formal dinner, so a later table suits her better than an early one. Michelle, tall and dark haired, is Chelsea through and through and would rather eat early than late, which on Walton Street is exactly right.
The Chelsea page covers the district's hotels, stations and arrival windows, and South Kensington and Belgravia are each a short walk away with their own pages. Every companion on the register travels to SW3 on the same fees.
Filed under: most of the names in this note also sit on the late twenties list in by request.