N * , THE LIGHT BAR, THE SUGAR CLUB
Peter Barnes
IN my childhood, London was an English city; now it is a cosmopolitan one. Each year 150,000 new immigrants swell a city whose inhabitants speak a babel Of differ- ent languages. From well-heeled sophisti- cates lured by City lucre to students brush- ing up their English at Pret a Manger, our foreign guests give an international buzz to a place that only a short time ago was merely a hive of native drones.
One of the more recent arrivals is Mari- anne. You may think it coyness on my part to reveal only her Christian name, but that is all that, at least in terms of nomencla- ture, she reveals of herself. For Marianne, • as you may know, is a painter. And, just as all geniuses have to make sacrifices for their art, Marianne, like Madonna or Caprice, has sacrificed her surname.
Between ourselves, Marianne's paintings are not my thing, and I have always tried, tactfully, to avoid discussing them with her. But, among admirers of modern art, to pos- sess a 'Marianne' is an ardent ambition and a badge of discernment. To possess Mari- anne herself is a no less ardent ambition for an even wider circle of admirers. But such ambitions are rumoured to be realistic only for those prominent in the Almanach de Gotha, and the Barnes family has so far played a disappointingly small role in Con- tinental aristocratic history.
In legend, Marianne personifies the French Revolution. She is usually depicted with her hair and the tricolour streaming out behind her, having previously removed her blouse as an incentive for fainter-heart- ed revolutionaries to follow her across the barricades. The real Marianne would be well equipped for such a part but, in public at least, is more demurely clad. Her follow- ing may owe more to her smoky French accent and her charming tendency to attach aitches to the front of English words usual- ly started with a vowel.
But I digress. Marianne and I started with a drink in the Light Bar of the St Mar- tin's Lane Hotel. A few weeks ago, I gave a bad review to the Saint M restaurant in the same hotel, and had been surprised to receive a postcard from Ian Schrager, the owner, inviting me to return. At the moment, the Light Bar thinks of itself as London's coolest hangout. To qualify for admittance you have to be either a hotel guest, a celebrity or a successful bluffer. Normally, my only hope would be to make the third category, but on this occasion the mention of Mr Schrager's name seemed enough to elevate us to the second. `Mr Barnes?' queried the clipboard-wielding guardian of the entrance to the bar. 'Oh yes, there is somebody here who would like to meet you.' I had momentary visions of being taken aside by a heavy employed to chastise hostile restaurant reviewers. But instead, having found our seats and ordered ourselves two glasses of cham- pagne, we were greeted by a polite and businesslike maitresse d'.
The Light Bar derives its name from the squares of different-coloured lights which illuminate the room from above. But it is something of a misnomer in that it contains no bar. You walk down a long rectangular room until confronted by a glass case light- ing a collection of coloured crystalware. Drinks are brought to you by the waitresses from somewhere behind this. Down the middle of the room runs a long raised table flanked by bar stools. This has deliberately been made narrow enough for people to be able to chat up each other across it. Groups of young men in fashionable grey suits were boasting to each other about forthcoming Hollywood deals while awaiting the arrival of suitable prey. I steered Marianne away from such dangers towards a table in the comer. The Light Bar's glitzy stylishness seemed to leave her cold, but I, being more impressionable, was more impressed.
From the Light Bar, we walked across Leicester Square to the Sugar Club. The Sugar Club's name used to attach to a smaller restaurant in Notting Hill, but it has been in its present premises for just over a year. A large rectangular space is divided in two by a bar and a stairwell. 'I 'ope they give us a table at the back,' wished Marianne. We were shown down- stairs to the basement.
The menu seems based on the principle that more is better. Hardly any dish adver- tises fewer than six ingredients, and many offer perplexing combinations, such as the venison with lemon grass and coriander. The pricing also reflects the 'more is better' principle. Starters set you back the best part of a tenner, the main courses twice as much, and /1 for a local charity is added to your bill. From a vertiginously rising wine list, we chose a 1996 St Emilion for L25 — drinkable, although the bottle appeared to have been kept warm before being opened.
Marianne started with oysters, but was disappointed when they arrived wrapped in slivers of deep-fried vegetable. She missed, she told me, the slippery suggestiveness of oysters in the raw. My seafood ceviche was more palatable. Unfortunately, my lamb main course, despite being requested medi- um-rare, had been cooked barely more than my seafood. Marianne was happier with her duck breast, although she found it a struggle to finish the enormous plateful she was served. 'I hate hall my food,' she aspirated triumphantly to the waiter who asked her how it was, leaving him strug- gling to reconcile her empty plate and beaming smile with the unequivocal con- demnation of her words.
We decided that neither of us could man- age a pudding. The restaurant, which had been full of lively diners when we arrived, was now beginning to thin. The moment clearly had arrived to steer the conversa- tion in a more intimate direction. Marianne pre-empted me. 'Peeturr,' she purred across the table, 'will you let me tell you now about my heart?' Mine missed a beat. I found myself temporarily unable to speak as my Adam's apple had wedged itself in my larynx. But slowly the cruel realisation dawned. Her heart, I found myself hearing, was based on synthetic fabrics and acrylic paint, and was inspired by diverse abstract, surrealist and neo-realist 'heartists'.
I never recovered. I had planned the end of the evening with the attention to detail of a master strategist. On the way out of the restaurant I was going to whisper to her in mock self-deprecatory tones, 'Would you like to find out if English lovers are as bad as you have heard?' Now I felt sure she would simply take it on trust. Struggling through the pre-Christmas cold to find a taxi, I returned, as Marianne would no doubt have put it, 'ome halone.
The Light Bar, Si Martin's Lane Hotel.
The Sugar Club, 21 Warwick Street, London WI; tel: 0171 437 7776
Peter Barnes writes for the Economist.
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