The W1K line: Grosvenor Square escorts for the hotels and mansion flats of the north side

The character of the square

The garden is open to the public by day, with a memorial garden to the victims of 11 September 2001 on its eastern side and statues of Roosevelt and Eisenhower near the paths. Brook Street leaves the square, passes the Art Deco hotel at the Davies Street corner and reaches the house where Handel wrote Messiah, next door to the flat Jimi Hendrix rented more than two centuries later. Mount Street and South Audley Street lead south towards the shops and dining rooms that make this corner of Mayfair feel like a village with better tailoring.

It is the most residential part of the account. Evenings here happen in an apartment more often than a hotel, and a porter's desk is the usual threshold.

Hotels and buildings on and near the square

The hotel at number 44 fills the southern side, with views across the garden from its upper floors. A large chain house sits at the corner of Duke Street, practical and busy with business travellers. The building on Brown Hart Gardens a couple of minutes north is art deco and discreet, and known for ROOM, a suite set inside a giant crouching figure by Antony Gormley. The Deco house on Brook Street is four minutes east, and the red brick hotel on Carlos Place is a minute south.

Private residences account for a large share of bookings: the mansion blocks on North Audley Street, the townhouses on Upper Brook Street, the apartments behind the square's own doors. Companions visit them exactly as they visit hotels, as the invited guest of a named resident. No hotel or building here is tied to the house in any way.

Walking minutes to the stations

Up Duke Street, about 4 minutes north, Bond Street station serves the Central, Jubilee and Elizabeth lines. Marble Arch, Central line, is around 6 minutes north west along North Audley Street and Oxford Street. After dark hardly anyone walks to either; the square is in Zone 1, so the journey costs nothing extra.

Arrivals in W1K

A same evening request usually puts a companion in front of the porter about an hour after the confirmation arrives in writing, and later at the height of the rush. For an apartment, send the full address and the name the porter will recognise; for a hotel, your full name and room number. The whole exchange is a single WhatsApp or Telegram message and its answer. Payment waits for the evening itself: she is handed the confirmed figure in person when she arrives. If a meeting runs long, a 15 minute grace period applies before anything needs rearranging.

Porters in the larger buildings work through the night, so a late arrival at an apartment is as simple as a hotel lobby, provided the name at the desk matches the name on the booking. If a residence prefers a precise minute rather than a window, say so, and the arrival is timed to it.

Who books around the square

Residents, above all. Owners of apartments who spend a few weeks a year in London and prefer evenings at home to evenings out. Guests of the hotel at number 44, or of the chain house on the Duke Street corner, in town for board meetings in the Mayfair offices, who book a companion for a dinner they would otherwise eat alone. And the guest on Brown Hart Gardens who wants someone to see the Gormley suite with, which is reason enough.

An evening that stays close

19:30, a drink at the trolley bar on Carlos Place, a minute from the square. 20:30, dinner in the same building at Hélène Darroze's dining room, the kind of meal that fills the evening without effort. 22:30, a slow circuit of the square outside the garden railings. 23:00, home, which on this square usually means a nod from the porter and a lift. The dinner date at £900 covers the whole of it with half an hour in hand.

Companions closest to W1K

Samanta is based in Mayfair and has a professed weakness for design hotels, which makes the Deco house on Brown Hart Gardens her kind of address. Angelika, also Mayfair based, suits the Carlos Place bar and the conversation after. From Marylebone, a few minutes north across Oxford Street, Liana brings Pilates calm and a paperback, well suited to a quiet evening at home, and Rosa, curly haired and warm, makes any apartment feel lived in within minutes.

Next to Grosvenor Square

Mayfair spreads south and east from the square. Park Lane is a short walk west along Upper Grosvenor Street, Bond Street four minutes east, and Marble Arch marks the district's north western corner.