The London Sketch Club in Chelsea.
We went there last month. It was really for the pudding that I went, though they also told me Puccini would be there. I imagined he would be a little world weary, given he was brought into this world 150 years ago. But they told me he wasn’t weary at all, and that he wasn’t adverse to the Smoked Paprika Risotto that we would all be sharing under the spotlights, courtesy of Damian Clarkson and The London Kitchen (heroes of the enigmatic four-course private party).
So I walked in, and looked for him – the ashen-faced vampire-genius, his Italian spark still kindled in eyes of inordinate dramatic power. Instead, I met a chap in a tweed jacket matched with red and yellow socks, and he quickly showed me to my seat, for fear, most incredulously, that I would speak for too long with foodie maestro Roy Ackerman (CBE), Chairman of the world master of culinary arts and one of the most gentle spirits I have ever met in person. I told him so, and added (in my own head) that his humility could be seen in the smooth gesturing-in of one lovely lady that reminded of Michelle Pfeiffer in an impassioned period drama.
Next to me at the table (there were ten of them, dotted around), a girl of an incredibly artistic beauty and silken locks, as if she had just alighted from the small operatic stage up front. The first floor club/painting/dining room is also small, and there are enchanting studio windows, and elegant silhouettes on the walls, and then there are strange musical notes drifting between the tables as the chatter falls away from the proverbial musings of the Kings Road into a twilight of obscure sciences. At this point the light food and heavy wine is slipped almost transparently between your noses as Puccini’s arrival at the Sketch Club in 1905 becomes the reason to indulge in a long, absent-minded analysis of the beauty of Tosca, and Turandot – which you saw in Florence the year before last – all the while keeping your eyes fixed on another pair of eyes that speak of unspeakable appreciation.
I was told shortly afterwards that Puccini wasn’t going to make an appearance that night (the maestro is in Rome, Michelle informed me later, seen driving a very fast car with as much care for bleak classical chords as I have for the charms of resident member Arthur Conan Doyle, who along with Charlie Chaplin and GK Chesterton, is still known to pass by the club on his way to the sweet shop on Baker Street).
Now guess how much you have to pay for all this? I mean, for all the food, and wine, and bon humour, and pudding with a soprano and tenor redefining love in a tremor of Bimba, Bimba, non piangere – loosely translated as ‘sweetheart, sweetheart, do not weep’, the famous love duet which ends with the butterfly pleading for her love to Vogliatemi bene, loosely mimed by pinning two arms to a table (the butterfly wings) and screaming ‘I have caught you. You are mine’.
Well, it’s all yours for the cost of a truffle-buttered chicken liver parfait, paired with a bottle of Pinot Grigio Rosato Ca’Lunghetta, finished off with a white chocolate tart with raspberry syrup (£100 at most fancy establishments).
Now the pair of eyes with unspeakable appreciation were becoming more and more enthused. And I divulged my knowledge of Puccini and my own recent exploits in Rome, and told of how her butterfly earrings were made to look bland in the company of her naturally ephemeral aura. For you see my friend, such a dinner party (or any such surprise gathering of peoples, elliptically fashioned with subtle movements towards the grandiose) inspires the Giacomo Casanova in one, the poet and his muse standing well outside of the confines of time.
And so, when the lamplight and garden whispers and the real-life portraits around you dissolve, and you are left enfolding the once careless glance, the oft-implacable fluttering of the eyes, the obscure musical cadence of her laughter, and dance in step to Puccini’s final act, you will catch a reflection of yourself in the studio windows where the leaves roam freely, and you will see a picture of the artist as a young man.
And you will smile, and remind yourself that you are indeed an artist, and a quite marvellous one at that.
(Future seasons open to both members and non-members include: * Summer 2011: The English Season – ‘Trifle, Custard and Coward’ * Autumn 2011: The French Season – ‘Pudding with Piaf’.)
Private Dining Rooms offer the opportunity to book The London Sketch Club for private parties – ranging from canapés to full scale dinners.
The London Sketch Club
7 Dilke Street
London
SW3 4JE
