The Groucho Club

The Groucho is to Soho as long is to lunch, as gin is to tonic, as hangover is to horn. What happens at the Groucho is very much supposed to stay there so sections of this review have been redacted to protect privacy and preserve at least one marriage. Just a few hours of my stay are lost to memory and may they forever remain so. 

Soho brims with private member’s clubs. I’ve frequented all of them at various stages and at various hours. Century is very actory and I’ve blundered in to more than one wrap party and danced with a lighting director who congratulated me on the script. I started my literary salon at Soho House in 2008 so for years was to be found on Greek Street (my Salon is now at the Savoy, where I am their very first literary ambassador). In the intervening decade Soho House has taken over the world and people with laptops have slightly taken over it – still, I love it for a good meeting that rolls into a good drink. Staying on Greek Street there’s the Union which is funky rather than sleek and fun for publishing parties. I don’t know who uses Blacks anymore but they’re sticking to candlelight and small intensely decorated rooms and there’s something to be said for that. Quo Vadis (upstairs) is presided over by the divine Jeremy Lee who cooks up a storm and throws his guests together merrily. Then there’s the Groucho…

‘Membership to the Groucho Club is more exclusive than the SAS and nearly as tough to get; more mysterious than the Masons, with an initiation ceremony that would make a ninja faint’. So says the application form they rather cruelly insert in the room-service menu.  You’re probably not going to get in. The Committee is famously arbitrary and it’s quicker to get a hip replacement on the NHS than it is climb their waiting list. But you’re definitely going to want to join. And if you’re staying in one of the 20 rooms above the club you’re granted temporary membership for the duration. It’s like suddenly being able to sing.

The Groucho opened in 1985 to men – and women – as an antidote to the stuffy single-sex nonsense of Clubland down the road in St James. It was started by publishing folk including Carmen Callil, Ed Victor and Liz Calder and Michael Sissons in the glorious era of the long lunch. It’s now owned by some private consortium but don’t let that bother you – the guests are still greeted with their first name by the staff, all of whom are charming without fail. 

For years Bernie Katz – tiny, loud, naughty beyond – was front of house. He’s the one who didn’t let the Spice Girls in. He’s also the one who put me into a cab and gave me the money for it one night. When he died in 2017 all Soho went into mourning. The staff are actors and this is their set, yet they make you feel like a star.

Who goes there? Well, you’re not supposed to say. And the staff certainly keep your secrets (right, Liam?). As I signed in I saw Her From That Big Netflix Thing and Him From The Guardian a few signatures above me. Over the desk is the artwork for Peter Blake’s 80th birthday party featuring hundreds of Names including (at opposite ends of the same feathery spectrum) Shirley Bassey and Grayson Perry. You can barely see the walls for all the art. It started with the YBAs – Hirst, Turk, Emin – who made their names and the Groucho’s reputation with their creativity and decadence in the 1990s. Artists often donate work in lieu of membership fees. After staggering in from the Man Booker Prize I ran into two of the best, and brightest, visual artists working in London today. I also bumped into one of my favourite editors who was happily too drunk to ask after my latest column (on its way, promise).

We’re almost at the rooms. But first, the lift. I want membership of the lift. It’s lined with padded burgundy leather and has some mesmerising video art of clouds or something on the wall. It’s so dark and sexy I willed it to get stuck. 

Right, the rooms. I opted for a Bigger Double. There are smaller ones and even singles and apparently also a whole flat. One entire wall of my room was windows so thank goodness for blinds.  The ceiling was high enough to hang a sling. Pink was the leitmotif with shocking pink velvet armchairs and a vast canvas of candy splodges that could have been Howard Hodgkin on a sugar high. The bed was big enough for any combination of Smiths. The bathroom was a bit of a squeeze and the door is glass so forget privacy.

It’s noisy. You can hear the party downstairs (until 2am) and the unique symphony of 45 Dean Street – camera shutters from paps, lapdancers arguing outside Sunset Strip, the plaintive cry of the Big Issue seller and about a hundred tuk-tuks and cabs. There are ear-plugs by your bed but you’re not here to rest are you? That’s what brunch is for.

I have honestly never had anything so delicious or restorative as brunch the morning after the very late night before with the artists and my editor. It was a deep-fried duck egg coated in breadcrumbs swimming in some kind of frothy cheese topped with shaved truffles. On the side were fingers of toast with melted brie atop and yet more truffles. I actually groaned with pleasure which wasn’t attractive but there we have it.

Dinner in the Italian restaurant at the back – some brilliant Shrigleys on the wall – was an endless parade of small but not meagre plates: unctuous carbonara; sharp melty Roquefort with caramelized onions; some drunken cherries that were actually sozzled. All washed down with a bottle of white burgundy that didn’t make feel ripped off for once. Flickering flames from the pizza oven cast a romantic/hellish glow depending on your mood. I dined with A Very Clever Famous Comedian who also happens to be vegetarian and she was as delighted by the fare as me. 

Eventually you have to sign out. I stumbled on to Dean Street smiling. In a spirit of great optimism, I may have taken the membership form with me. Let’s hope there’s no CCTV in that lift.