Mayfair after dark, W1K and W1J: company for your hotel evening

Visitors notice the famous names first, yet Mayfair is really a village of side streets. Shepherd Market hides between Curzon Street and Piccadilly, all tiny squares and pub tables spilling onto the cobbles. Bruton Place and Hay's Mews are narrow mews lanes where chauffeurs wait with the engine off. Mount Street runs past old butchers, bookshops and couture houses towards the benches of Mount Street Gardens, and Berkeley Square keeps its giant plane trees and its private clubs to itself.

After nine the pace drops. People stroll rather than hurry, from a dinner to a nightcap, and a woman in an elegant coat walking through a hotel lobby is the least surprising sight in W1. That easy anonymity is what our Mayfair guests value most.

Claridge's on Brook Street, with its art deco lobby and the chequered floor that every first time visitor photographs. The Connaught on Carlos Place, W1K 2AL, looking onto the misting water sculpture outside its door. The Dorchester on Park Lane and, next door, the smaller 45 Park Lane, both with Hyde Park across the traffic. Brown's Hotel on Albemarle Street, its panelled rooms warmed by open fires in winter. The Ritz on Piccadilly, where the Rivoli Bar glows like the inside of a jewellery box.

We list them so you can picture the evening, not because of any partnership: no hotel in Mayfair has an arrangement with London Babes, and none is needed. She arrives as your visitor, exactly as a friend would, and the same holds for serviced apartments along Park Street and private homes around South Audley Street.

For most of the district the nearest Tube is Green Park: count on roughly 4 minutes from the Piccadilly side, with Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria line trains. Bond Street, some 5 minutes north of Brook Street, adds the Central and Jubilee lines plus the Elizabeth line, which runs directly out to Heathrow. From the Park Lane hotels, the Piccadilly line platforms of Hyde Park Corner are a 7 minute stroll.

You will rarely need any of them. Our companions travel by taxi at night, and because all of Mayfair lies in Zone 1, the ride is already built into your fare.

Booking in Mayfair takes very little. A single WhatsApp or Telegram message names a companion, your hotel, the hour and how many hours you picture, and within minutes the desk answers with her availability and the fare. One quiet check follows, your full name and room, and then a bank transfer of 25 percent secures a standard hotel or residence booking. An overnight or an event is secured with half the fare instead, and the travel share inside that half stays with us should plans change.

Mayfair is one of the quickest stops on the map, so after confirmation she typically reaches you in about 35 minutes, with a message from the desk as she sets off. Either side of the agreed time there is a 15 minute cushion, and a standard booking cancelled three or more hours ahead costs you nothing at all.

Picture it. At eight she meets you in the Rivoli Bar at The Ritz, where a martini arrives before the conversation has quite found its rhythm. At nine you walk up through Berkeley Square, beneath its great plane trees, to The Guinea Grill in Bruton Place for a steak in the wood panelled back room. Near eleven the streets are almost empty, and the walk back along Mount Street is slow on purpose. The last hour belongs to your suite, curtains open and the park dark beyond Park Lane.

All of that sits inside the dinner date booking, four hours for £1,300. Two hours, enough for a drink and a long talk, come to £750, and a single hour begins at £400.

Hotel guests in town for a run of meetings, who would like a warm and interesting person across the dinner table rather than a laptop. Residents of apartments off Grosvenor Square, who prefer the evening to stay at home. Visitors on a special trip, a closed deal or a birthday away from home, who want Mayfair at its most polished. None of them wants a performance. They want the arrangement kept simple, the fare agreed in writing and a companion who is exactly the woman in her photographs.

Angelika plays tennis most mornings and spends her evenings chasing live jazz and contemporary art, with long straight black hair and an easy, athletic calm. Luna has dark auburn hair and firm opinions about wine; she loves the theatre and never picks the obvious bottle. Samanta, tall and poised, plays the violin, adores languages and has a trained eye for a beautifully designed hotel.

Because they live a few streets away, they are often the fastest to arrive. Any of our other companions will come to Mayfair on the same terms, with the journey inside the fare.

Walk east across Regent Street and you are in Soho, where the evening gets louder and later. North over Oxford Street lies Marylebone and its village high street. Hyde Park Corner opens south west into Belgravia and on to Knightsbridge, and the lights of Piccadilly Circus mark the start of the West End.