Nightlife in Yorkshire and London

I’m writing this week’s column sitting outside in the crisp, breezy London air at Sacred Café on Ganton Street just off commercial Carnaby. According to Time Out London, it’s “The Place for Coffee Worship,” which is what I hastily needed on this hungover Sunday after an insane night out first at the W London’s Lounge Bar for aperitivo and then Balans for dinner with their signature Porn Star Martinis (which come with champagne shots and apparently make your breath smell like passion fruit) and finally at the club Lo Profile. We didn’t really keep it low profile outside on Meard Street at 4am. I’m talking about YOU, Alessio. I think I’ve written about Baby A’s farewell party in Hong Kong two years ago being totally Dramadan. Well, last night was total Dramadan, Holi fuck and Ragnarok all rolled into one. Typical West London hot mess. I shan’t say anymore. Then there was a fight between aggro English lads, the police and a Pakistani with umbrellas while the Vietnamese cheered inside Hung’s, the Chinese restaurant right opposite the W where we were having post-clubbing congee.

What was I doing in the UK? I agreed to go on this last minute whirlwind press trip to Yorkshire, the biggest county in England, as I was sick of sweating in Hong Kong. Plus BA was inviting us to experience their new first class seats. Can’t say no to that! My magical friend Alison—who hasn’t made an appearance in this column since she moved back to the UK last year—surprised both me and the group of journalists I was traveling with by showing up at the platform of York’s quaint train station at 10am with a white rose of Yorkshire—morning party. Old York is incredibly charming and picturesque, and is now on my list of favorite medieval towns… although nightlife there only revolves around going down to ancient pubs like the Black Swan for few pints of the local ale and squirrel pie. I ate squirrel for the first time in my life. It isn’t really representative of the local cuisine, but I just had to have it. Squirrel tastes just like rabbit, or chicken if you’re chicken and never had rabbit.

We spent a day in the port town of Whitby, where fish n’ chips was born (Magpie’s haddock was seriously the BEST fish n’ chups I’ve ever had!) and where Bram Stoker wrote parts of Dracula (Whitby’s is where the vampire lord landed in England) and where it’s Goth night every evening. Our last night in Yorkshire was at the Devonshire Arms in bucolic Skipton, an exquisite country house hotel and spa with its own helipad amidst the ruins of Bolton Abbey, surrounded by rolling green meadows and brown sheep dung (there’s no dung on the hotel’s immaculate lawns, of course). The cocktail lounge there makes an impressively mean, clean dirty Martini, and Morrissey was staying there that night. Alas, the PR wouldn’t disclose which private dining room he was in, even after all the wines at the 10-course dinner in their Michelin-starred Burlington Restaurant. So no, I didn’t get to be a groupie and party it up like a rock star with Morrissey—thereby disappointing all the DJs and Brits who read my FB update.

After a week of Yorkshire pudding and potatoes; I was like, BP, GIVE ME FRIKKIN RICE AND SOUP NOODLES IN LONDON. Luckily, I had checked in to the W Leicester Square, wondrously right next to Chinatown and SoHo. If you want to be right where the partying is, W is simply the hotel to be at—that location is simply unassailable.

Tomorrow night, it’s Shoreditch, bitches!