The best Bloody Mary in London?

I have recently become obsessed with finding the best Bloody Mary in London.

This obsession started after my visit to Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair last summer. Their Bloody Mary is expensive (around £15) but is absolutely delicious. It is vegetarian friendly too as they make their own spice mixture and don’t use the non-vegetarian Worcestershire sauce which many pubs and bars do. It is spicy but not overbearing and it really is a meal in itself. Coupled with the complimentary snacks that you get in Brown’s Hotel which are frequently replenished it can stave off hunger pangs for an hour or two!

I recently went on Pete Berthoud’s “ultimate pub crawl” which started in Donovan's Bar at Brown’s so I had to order my favourite. It was as good as on my previous visit although I had the quandary of what to do with the individual peppercorns that were balanced on the stick of celery above the glass which I hadn’t seen before. Those of us that had Bloody Marys wondered what the etiquette was. We all decided to tip the peppercorns into our drink and hoped it wouldn’t affect the taste too much. This was a good idea until we reached the bottom of the glass and started sucking up whole peppercorns through the straw so there was then the dilemma of taking them individually out of our mouths! Thankfully we were sitting in the “naughty corner” (an area slightly offset from the bar decorated with some of Terence Donovan’s more risqué photos) so were slightly hidden from view.

A couple of hours later the last stop on our "crawl" was the American Bar of the Savoy Hotel and it was the first time I had ever been in there. Slightly inebriated with a piano tinkling in the background this was the ultimate in bars. I decided to order a Bloody Mary to compare with Brown’s which I had anticipated to be more or less the same. Unfortunately it wasn’t. It was lacking in spice and thickness not helped by an enormous block of ice in the drink.

Does anyone have suggestions of places in Central London that serve the best Bloody Mary preferably cheaper than Brown’s.  However I am now completely spoiled and prefer ones made with individual spices rather than the usual Worcestershire sauce. Maybe a recipe to make my own would be cheaper – ideas welcome!

Coppélia: Remembered and Enjoyed - Guest post by Maggie Moncrieff (my Mum)

Ballet was my first love. I can remember dragging my mother along Princes Street in Edinburgh worried in case I was late for class; I was three or four years’ old.

After the usual progression of trials and tribulations including the declaration of War I managed to win a scholarship to Sadlers Wells School in the 1940s. Although the theatre was closed due to bomb damage the rehearsal and changing rooms were still in operation. You entered the stage door and clambered up the sparkling granite stairs to the dressing rooms entering a new and magical world.

There we received a complete training of classical ballet. All the steps of every routine in the ballets were covered at dance class. Exercise at the barre was taken at twice the pace I was used to and with a great swing by Mrs Hughes on the piano.

We owe a great deal to Ninette de Valois who started it all with the support of Lilian Baylis (Old Vic) and the Russian ballet master Sergieff who had smuggled all the classical data, every notation etc out of Russia. The drama and the dance combined in the theatre known as Vic-Wells and prospered. The ballets were performed at The New Theatre in St Martin’s Lane (now known as The Noel Coward Theatre) which was kept open during the War providing I think a valuable escape for the people of London.

More recently a very important development of a new school and company is thriving in Birmingham - the Birmingham Royal Ballet. This has nurtured the same style and spirit as Sadlers Wells and last Friday our daughter Joanna took me to a glorious performance of “Coppélia” at the London Coliseum on the company’s guest visit to the West End. We had a superb evening and I rejoice in their success.

Every step of every dance carefully noted has remained the same over the years and was danced with verve and great joy.

Coppélia is definitely my favourite, not the least because I took part as a student. I was one of the dolls, the astronomer doll which has since disappeared, but the music still enchants and the company’s performance was superb. Congratulations to them all – long may they continue to shine!

Maggie Moncrieff

Amazing Art in Mayfair

Mayfair is an area I am quite attached to. It is the area where I based my project walk whilst studying to become a guide and as luck would have it our exam walk was also based there.

Last Friday afternoon I was travelling between Trafalgar Square and Marble Arch. Spotting the traffic was snarled up in Regent Street I jumped off the bus at Hamleys and decided to cut through Mayfair to my destination rather than brave the crowds of Oxford Street.

I turned off Regent Street into Maddox Street, past some massive holes in the road outside St George’s Hanover Square (noting in passing that this would affect my Creative Mayfair walk) and carried on towards New Bond Street. I was going to turn right but then remembered Sotheby’s was nearby and it is one place in London that I can’t pass during the day without going in. I commented on a previous visit to Sotheby's on a blog post in 2010.

On my afternoon tea themed walk I talk about Sotheby's bargain small cream tea which is a snip at £8.25 (although it may have gone up since I last did this walk). I also mention on my walks that you can just pop in and see whatever they are exhibiting at the time. I always wonder if people on my walks take my advice.

Yes, the doorman will ask if he can help you but I always ask if they have any exhibitions on (of lots that are shortly to be auctioned) and they are happy to tell you.

There were two exhibitions on on Friday. One for a sale of musical instruments and one of contemporary art prints. I felt completely out of my depth in the music room with experts picking up and examining the violins and others playing the larger stringed instruments but I felt much more at home in the room full of art not that I would be buying any though!

The first picture I encountered was a print of Andy Warhol's version of Edward Munch’s The Scream (more details and a picture can be found here). The colours in this picture were so vibrant I couldn't stop looking at it. The price estimate was £150,000 to £200,000. The other artwork that really drew me in was one of butterflies by Damien Hirst which I think was this one. There are also prints by Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso. 

The auction takes place on 29^th March at 2pm so I would imagine (although I can’t find details from the website) that the exhibition will continue for another couple of weeks.

It is great to be able to see art like this which is on public display for only a short period of time before being sold and disappearing off again out of the public eye. Over the past few years I have seen some amazing artworks just by dropping in on the offchance.

It’s definitely worth visiting Sotheby's, for either the cream tea (which is really good) or for the art and the same goes for other auction houses although I have yet to find another restaurant within one. If you know different comment below!

The author of this blog (Joanna Moncrieff) is a qualified and insured City of Westminster Tour Guide who specialises in food and drink themed walks in the West End. 

Details of all her walks are listed here and upcoming public walks are here.