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Almost everyone you speak to will tell you that the London of today is not the same as the London of ten years ago.
What that means depends mostly on who it is you are speaking to.
If you speak to what might be described as the global rich then most of them will be in the process of leaving the city. They are not English people and they had moved to London only because it was a nice place to live and the British government offered them great deals on income tax under what was known as the Non Doms scheme. Those tax rules have now changed and rather than pay more tax the rich would rather make their homes elsewhere.
I don’t think they are a great loss. There is no particular pride in being known as a city that welcomes oligarchs and Eurotrash and London is better off without them. But a whole subculture of expensive restaurants and fancy shops had developed around the expat rich and nearly all of these places are now in trouble, flourishing only during tourist season and seeming cold and empty the rest of the year.
More worrying is the rise in crime. In the 1970s crime rates in New York were so high that it was unsafe to walk after dark. New York has been cleaned up but London has now become something like 1970s New York. In New York much of the crime was drug-related. Here it is mostly motivated by greed. Everyone has heard stories about people being mugged in the heart of Mayfair, been warned not to wear expensive watches or jewellery and to watch out for phone snatchers. But now the criminals are even more brazen. This time I heard about a top restaurant where a man with a backpack and a knife walked in and calmly put some of the restaurant’s most expensive wines into his bag before coolly wandering off. The restaurant called the police; they took a week to respond.
Then there is the descent of the city into Protestistan. Every Saturday central London shuts down for protest demonstrations or parades. Roads are closed. You can’t drive anywhere. So last Saturday my wife and I decided to walk instead but as we were trying to cross over, were separated and ended up being trapped on different sides of Piccadilly .Pedestrians were not allowed to move and were coralled into a narrow crowded space while parades and demonstrations took over the area.
| "So, if you know where to look, London can still be rewarding. But yes, it is not the city it used to be. Which makes me sad." |
As if all this were not bad enough, there are other problems. The upmarket retail sector is depressed because Rishi Sunak ended the tax-refund scheme and Keir Starmer has refused to bring it back. So New Bond Street can look like a ghost town. Even so, prices continue to shoot up. An Uber from St James to Buckingham Gate, a distance of not much more than a mile can cost over 40 pounds (around 5000 rupees) and food prices are higher than I have ever known them to be.
I was born in London and did part of my schooling there so I have a sentimental attachment to the city. And yet I go there much less than I used to. I last went a year ago and I went back last week only for a board meeting. I love the city. I love being back walking along the roads I know so well. But even I now try and go to other European cities instead of London.
And yet the city is full of contradictions. Though average hotel rates fell over the last year, new hotels where entry level rooms start at over 1000 pounds a night (over a lakh) keep opening even as the fine dining sector faces a slump. Some famous restaurants such as Hakkasan have actually lowered prices (the signature duck salad has gone from 28 pounds to 14 pounds) and the original Hanway Place Hakkasan has closed. Each week brings news of new closures.
Not all top restaurants are doing badly though. Chutney Mary is one of London’s most expensive Indian restaurants and it was jam packed (15 per cent Indians and 85 per cent white people) when I went and Jamavar, the only Indian restaurant mini chain in the world that has Michelin stars in three cities was heaving on a Saturday despite the road closures.
But it is the relatively reasonably priced restaurants that are the most popular. I had an excellent meal at the elegant The Lavery and Town, London’s best reviewed new restaurant was turning away customers who came, presumably, for the wonderful service and ambiance rather than just the good (but overhyped out of all proportion) food.
I went with Fay Maschler, the Queen of London food writing and her sister Beth Coventry, the respected chef and restaurateur, to the casual Italian Nipotina for a vastly enjoyable meal and the Noble Rot in Shepherds Market, though nowhere near as good as the Lamb’s Conduit Street, original, was full nevertheless.
And there are islands of excellence. I first stayed at the Taj-run St James’s Court hotel in 1987 when it had just opened. Since then the hotel has taken its apartment block (51 Buckingham Gate) upmarket and the experience just keeps getting better and better. Under Joy Joby the service is more personalised than ever before and the Indian breakfasts, masterminded by Chef Sujoy Gupta are better than at most Taj hotels in India. So, if you know where to look, London can still be rewarding. But yes, it is not the city it used to be. Which makes me sad.
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