Hit hard by recession, this city's response is to turn on the charm and bring on the bargains, writes Erin O'Dwyer.
It's impossible to visit Britain without absorbing news. I seem to soak it up, osmosis-like, from the crowded newsstands that hold up every street corner. I'm in London the week Prime Minister Gordon Brown becomes a dead man walking. On the other side of the world, Gordon Ramsay is wreaking havoc with Tracy Grimshaw's reputation. And in Iran, the rising death toll means that, for the first time, US President Barack Obama is deeply troubled about something other than his country's economy.
It's a bright summer's day and we're sitting around a solid English oak table at Ramsay's Maze Grill in expensive, leafy Mayfair. The 12-seater table is known as the Butcher's Block and we wonder which Gordon's head will roll first. From here, we can observe the kitchen at close range, its dramatic play framed by the proscenium arch of the brightly lit grill.
It's lunchtime. Midweek. And still the joint is jumping. The head chef, a Jack Maggs-type of character, leans against the stainless-steel workbench and issues orders. Like a coin-operated clown, he is quiet until there's a lull in our conversation. Then we turn in his direction and he comes to life. "Service. Oi, you there, I said service."
His staff return the favour and pass the gruffness down the line. Amid the all-male chefs, pretty waitresses wend their way, breadboards laden with different cuts of meat. My salmon arrives. Too much mustard. But then, it's a steak grill, after all.
"Do you think all this theatre is for real?" I ask my companion. "Not at all," she replies.
As we chow down on the sole thing that should have made Ramsay famous, I get the distinct impression that this is a city fiddling while Rome burns. It's true, London has felt the impact of the global financial crisis like no other city outside the US. More than 7 per cent of people are jobless, a basket of groceries costs 15 per cent more than it did this time last year and even the pubs are crying poor. Enterprise Inns, which owns 7000 pubs, is reportedly £5 million ($10.2 million) out of pocket.
"I'll never manage another public house again," moans former landlord Terry Oyland quoted in a Guardian newspaper slipped under my hotel door. "Please save what is left of your sanity and don't be tempted to take over a pub. I can think of no worse Faustian situation for a human being to be in this century than a contract to a pub company."
More Dickensian than Faustian perhaps. But in an effort to trade their way out of the mess, even the publicans seem to have returned to the city's theatrical roots.
Even before Shakespeare's time, theatre was the thing London did best. You see it in the Houses of Parliament and the newspaper headlines that reflect MPs' scandalous charades. It's here that celebrity chefs first took prime-time focus. In a crisis, the play's the thing. And it seems everyone in London agrees.
From the inside, the sleek "caffs" and gastro pubs look to be doing great business.
Tables are crowded and, from the bar, drinkers spill out onto the pavement, warm ale in hand, to catch the fading sun.
But outside of every establishment, a hastily stencilled chalkboard is propped on the footpath. Lunchtime menus are £10 or £12. Dinner deals throw in free cocktails as well.
In three days, I try three sensational dishes, each time for not much more than a tenner: Ramsay's mustard-encrusted salmon with green beans (£15 with starter), wild boar chops with walnuts and cherries (£15.50) and a bowl of good ol'-fashioned fish'n'chips (£10.50).
Of course, for some, this is all a lure. Like the fickle London sunshine. Like the flat, warm ale. And like the £18 three-course menu that would normally cost nearly £40 that entices us to Ramsay's New York-inspired grill in the first place.
Far from being bad news, the global financial crisis spells a fine time for travelling to London. The Australian dollar is strong against the pound and, like the pubs, hotels are offering freebies on everything from breakfast to dinner. Sometimes even the room itself.
On our whistle-stop tour, we stay at The Mandeville Hotel, just off Oxford Street , near Central London.
It's walking distance to the galleries around Trafalgar Square and dangerously close to the stylish boutique streets around Marylebone. We're here during a run of warm, clear days, so the rose gardens of Regent's Park are also on our to-see list.
Inside, the hotel itself shows no signs of the recession. Its three-nights-for-two deal has the foyer buzzing and it's the only place in London to offer a high tea for men. (Think whisky and backgammon at the bar, washed down with a stiff Earl Grey tea.)
We decide to leave high tea to the boys and head for Soho instead. At Inamo restaurant, which opened last year, we find interactive tabletops where diners place orders with the click of a mouse.
Waiters are seemingly dispensed with and I'm tempted to dismiss it all as style over substance. That is, until an army of black-clad staff arrive minutes later with our steaming order of Japanese edamame beans. There's even a webcam of the kitchen, in case you don't believe it.
But this is London and even interactive tables seem oh-so five minutes ago.
In hip-and-historic Shoreditch, Albion's Oven has a website and a Twitter account. A bakery that describes itself as a "community resource" sends tweets to its customers the second something comes out fresh.
"Delicately flaky yet unctuously oozy," it recently tweeted. "Apple turnovers are opposites attracting." Really.
In the city heart, it's not simply enough to be wired. Or even wireless. The latest craze is the pop-up temporary bars that spring up all over central London, make a motza in a few weeks, then disappear. On the banks of the Thames, we visit the Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar, which pops up each summer on the riverfront terrace of Somerset House.
It's constructed entirely from a translucent blue polycarbonate and serves 10 types of long, cool gins. But as the sun sets and we long for something more warming, we head across the road to the Lobby Bar at the One Aldwych hotel. It's a much more permanent establishment but surely the fruity Pimm's cocktail (summer fruit, Pimm's Number One, Beefeater Gin and chilled elderflower tea) can't last forever.
I finish my London visit with a real trip to the theatre. Billy Elliot's gritty, gridlocked County Durham seems strangely out of place amid the colour and noise of London in recession. Recession, what recession?
Back at my hotel, from the front door I count at least eight restaurants. It's almost 9 pm and they're all packed.
Squeezed between them is an old watch-repair shop and yet another news-stand. I find the watch shop strangely heartening. And at least people still read newspapers here.
TRIP NOTES
- GETTING THERE British Airways flies twice daily from Sydney to London. A $1547 return fare is available for bookings before July 17. See ba.com.
- TOURING THERE Check out London's hippest shopping precincts and urban art scene with Urban Gentry's insiders tours. Three-hour walking tours from £149 ($304) for small groups. urbangentry.com.
- EATING THERE Get two-for-one main courses at 280 gastro pubs across London this summer. innengland.com.
- DRINKING THERE Summer pop-up bar, the Bombay Sapphire Dusk Bar serves G&Ts at Somerset House's River Terrace on the banks of the Thames. See somersethouse.org.uk. Across the road, the Lobby Bar does a quirky line of summer cocktails. See onealdwych.com.
- SHOPPING THERE The Old Truman Brewery has been transformed into London's newest retro design market. Sunday UpMarket, from 10am to 5pm, features up-and-coming fashion designers. See sundayupmarket.co.uk.
- FURTHER INFORMATION See visitbritain.com.au.
SLEEP ON THE CHEAP
Every recession has a silver lining. In London, this means cut-price hotel rooms.
- BREAKFAST IN BED On Clerkenwell Road in the East End, four-star boutique hotel The Zetter is offering weekend stays with complimentary full English breakfast. Rooms from £340 ($695) for two nights. See www.thezetter.com.
- THREE FOR TWO Just off Oxford Street in Central London, the swish Euro-style Mandeville Hotel is offering three nights for the price of two every weekend throughout summer. Rooms from £316 a night. See www.mandeville.co.uk.
- ULTIMATE VALUE The City Inn has £79 rooms every weekend throughout summer. Sister inns in Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Leeds have rooms from £59. See cityinn.com.
- MODERN MANSION The quirky Malmaison brand, which prides itself on stylish decadence in heritage locales (think old jails, seaman's missions etc) has specials every Sunday. Spend more than £75 in the brasserie on Sunday night and stay the night in either London or Oxford for £25. See malmaison.com/promotions/the-sunday-supplement.
- OLDE FAITHFUL The Travelodge has £19 rooms, although availability is limited to the northern winter. The brand has 300 hotels across Britain and Ireland. See travelodge.co.uk.
- TO THE TOWER Guoman Tower Hotel, on the River Thames and overlooking Tower Bridge, is offering three nights for the price of two for £258, including breakfast. See guoman.com/the-tower.
The writer was a guest of Visit Britain and British Airways.
