A REPUTATION FOR EXCELLENCE
& TIMELESS STYLE.
ST JAMES’S, HAS ALWAYS DELIVERED
THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE.
St James’s – created by permission of Charles II - has been a centre of luxury and painstaking artistry since the 1660s. Its heart is St James’s Square, in the shadow of two royal palaces.
Today though, it wears its history lightly, retaining an exclusive village feel characterised by eclectic shop fronts with a luxurious modernity behind their traditional service.
Its galleries set the pace in world art and St James’s is pioneering a new role as a venue for global business, offering an unrivalled location at the very point where old and new London meet.
Imposing architecture and retail heritage sweep through an enclave alive with bustling communities, criss-crossed by busy metropolitan streets and artisanal arcades where oases of quiet privacy can still be found in the centre of a city.
Beneath this effortless urban style is a clear-eyed commitment to adapt and evolve. A vision of the future in the heart of a newly defined city centre.
Ikoyi
1 St James’s Market
Based on close observation of how to harvest micro-seasonal British ingredients at precisely the right time, combined with a vast collection of spices, Ikoyi’s cuisine embodies the cornerstone concepts of modern European dining.
This Michelin-starred, hip restaurant is a vibrant, heady mix of 100 per cent organic meat prepared with punchy spicing and vivid colours. Ikoyi shows just how far St. James’s clubland has moved on from the trencherman kitchens serving steaming piles of mutton pies and puddings. It marks a new direction of high concept and high flavours that are open, honest and true to their origins.
St James’s Hotel and Club Mayfair
7-8 Park Place
At its creation as a private club, you would have found St James’s full of diplomats and envoys as an ambassadorial home from home for VIPs travelling on behalf of their country. Now we can all follow in the footsteps of the envoys, authors, movie stars, celebrities and maybe even the odd spy who over 16 decades have made the hotel their first choice for London.
Remade as the St James’s Hotel and Club, it now offers supremely luxurious rooms and suites as well as the Michelin starred Seven Park Place restaurant serving its distinctly Anglo take on French cuisine. It retains the quiet calm of a gentleman’s club, but you’re more likely to see Alice Cooper, Liza Minnelli or Keith Richards in the lobby rather than a diplomat on a secret mission with an attaché case full of state secrets.
The White Cube
Masons Yard
White Cube is, without doubt, the world’s most influential contemporary art gallery where collector and founder Jay Joplin first exhibited Young British Artists who have since become household names, like Tracey Emin and Gavin Turk. Now based in a polar white moderne building which replaced an electricity sub station, it curates a breath-taking array of new art from around the world while the space itself is has become as much a part of the viewing experience as the work.
This globally significant space has housed a who’s who of modern artists - from Jake and Dinos Chapman to Damien Hirst. Sam Taylor-Wood to Gilbert and George. And like St James’s Square, White Cube has grown and evolved. First set in tiny space in Duke Street artists were limited to one single work. Now there are two galleries in London, another in Hong Kong and a host of collaborations around the world.
J. M. Weston
60 Jermyn Street
It may sound English, but J.M. Weston carries a strong streak of Parisian panache. Everything created by this very French shoemaker carries its own unique brand.
Classic penny loafers can be picked up anywhere in the world. But not Weston penny loafers. These shoes sprung from a design process that experimented with 200 different shapes and tweaks before they hit the right combination to let wearers share in their eternal, effortless style.
And in the 1960s, it was Paris’s Rive Gauche rebels who went sockless and gave Weston a whole new look. Why? Don’t expect much more that a Gallic shrug by way of explanation, although today’s avant garde share that same san chaussettes spirit. But the truth is, it’s Weston’s uncompromising approach to excellence that makes their shoes as popular with the rock and roll aristocracy as they are with the nobility ancienne.
The American Bar at The Stafford
St. James’s Place
The sleek, curved glass American Bar at The Stafford is one of London’s great survivors. It transcended the boom for US-style cocktail bars in the 1930s, with no bust. It even saw out World War II relatively unscathed. And – most miraculously of all - its legendary wine cellar somehow survived being used as an air raid shelter for thirsty US officers during the Blitz.
Today the American Bar is a tastefully-tweaked, modern take on tradition where hours can slip away sampling new versions of old favourites. Fresh flavours, new customers, new connections, new directions in a gloriously eccentric English setting.
Turnbull and Asser
71-72 Jermyn Street
Rich in history, Turnbull & Asser is a now a global brand but its roots have, since 1903, been at its striking double-fronted flagship in St James’s. Its quietly raffish style epitomises the fluidity of British craft and its bold, confident shirts have enhanced the appeal of countless stars, politicians and commercial giants, both male and female.
Generations of James Bonds have submitted to the patient process of being measured for a unique pattern before 33 pieces of crisp cotton are stitched together to make a piece of wearable art. Turnbull &Asser’s Bond pedigree, not only goes back to Dr No and Sean Connery but reaches all the way through to the current 007, Daniel Craig.