British GQ - 09.2019

I

t’s 11:30pm on a Friday night and the

white-clad waiters at Bagatelle – a

glitzy French restaurant in London’s

Mayfair – have just mounted the velvet

banquettes. The 1986 deep house hit

“Can You Feel It” thunders through the

speakers, while over in the far corner Usain

Bolt tucks into artfully presented mains next

to a waitress wildly smashing two silver plates

together as makeshift cymbals.

To my right, a big group of enthusiastic

24-year-old men, here to celebrate a birth-

day, jump onto their seats to join in with the

staff’s whooping and whistling as an unper-

turbed sommelier refills their glasses with

Dom Pérignon at an impressive pace. To my

left, a woman clutching a Lumiere cocktail

(Belvedere Vodka, coconut, pineapple) has a

go at banging the giant drum attached to yet

another waiter who, inexplicably, has donned

a mullet wig since he served me my sea bass.

It’s been dark, save for the flashes of coloured

light from the chandeliers, since the maître

d’, like an absurdly handsome, Deluminator-

wielding Dumbledore, systematically tapped

each table light off 15 minutes earlier.

Only three hours before, I had arrived at

what looked like a standard blingy Central

London restaurant. Sure, the music was much

louder than usual and the host insisted we do

a welcome “Kamikaze” shot with him as soon

as we sat down. But still, nothing gave me a

portent of the anything-goes unravelling that

would come with this late dinner sitting. Post

11pm, the vibe is a cross between a ridic-

ulously raucous wedding and a Centurion

Card-addled afterparty.

I should have known, really. Bagatelle

is a New York import, famed for exces-

sive party brunches, with outposts in Ibiza,

St Barths, Dubai and Miami. It wasn’t the first

to marry the traditional restaurant experience

with a club or party atmosphere (let’s call it a

“clubstaurant”), but the concept has certainly

refined what steak joint STK started over ten

years ago, also in Manhattan ( essentially

sticking a DJ into a slick restaurant-

meets-lounge). Fast-forward to 2019 and a

DETAILS LONDON

a late-night lounge based on cofounder Flavio

Briatore’s Billionaire Clubs. Hovarda, on Rupert

Street, is an Aegean-inspired bar and restau-

rant where civilised small plates make way for

debauchery and dancing before you’ve even

had time to order a third Meraki Mule. Then

there’s Opium London, the just-opened outlet

(also on Rupert Street) of a successful Spanish

brand that sees a dining room and nightclub

housed side by side in the same venue.

C

lubstaurants are simply the loudest,

brashest realisation of a wider move-

ment towards what the industry is

calling “performative dining”. At its quieter

end, this can simply mean staff creating a

celebratory mood by participating in the

“fun” with guests. At the red-hot Shoreditch

trattoria Gloria, guests stay firmly in their

seats as the music blares and the waiters flit

ebulliently from table to table like “Soho

House staff on speed”, as one GQ editor

describes it. The “warm and high-spirited”

vibe is down to “the Italian blood in our

veins”, according to cofounder Victor Lugger.

“We’re strong believers that the moments you

spend in a restaurant should be the very best

part of your day,” he says.

So, is the next big thing in hospitality here

for the long haul? As a 27-year-old who’s long

outgrown regular club nights but still wants a

night out with friends to feel substantial, I’d

certainly like to think so. As Belvedere brand

ambassador Mark Tracey puts it, performa-

tive dining “offers London’s night owls the

opportunity for an evening to naturally evolve

without having to change location. The scene

has been slowly bubbling away for a number

of years globally but all eyes are on London

now to see how the UK will develop it further.”

The mood back at Bagatelle is quite a vin-

dication. Stephen, a 33-year-old financial

analyst dining there that night, sums up the

appeal neatly: “My friends and I do a late

dinner in a place like this every month,” he

says. “We millennials put a premium on eating

out, but we love partying as well. This way,

we get the best of both worlds.”

London’s private dining room boom

Performative dining might be in vogue, but for certain special occasions only a private room will do. Scott’s has just launched the most

expensive private dining room in the world, The Platinum Arowana Room (valued at £6 million thanks to its artwork), but across the city

you can find spaces to suit every taste, from Balthazar’s intimate Le Petit Salon Privé to Annabel’s opulent Silver Room.

Inside the raucous, ridiculous

rise of the CLUBSTAURANT

Story by Kathleen Johnson

It’s either your idea of hell – or the best night out in town

new wave of restaurants providing all-out

extravaganzas has hit the capital.

Latin American hot spot Mnky Hse, only a

couple of doors down from Bagatelle on Dover

Street, promises pyrotechnics and DJ sets

until 4am, four days a week. Sumosan Twiga

in Knightsbridge – a Japanese restaurant that

also offers a separate Italian menu – is home to

Bagatelle

Mnky Hse

Hovarda

09-19DetailsClubRestaurant.indd 66 05/07/2019 12:29

62 GQ.CO.UK SEPTEMBER 2019