Park Lane, W1K: a composed evening at the end of a working day

Six great houses and the traffic between them

The row is a single run of buildings that most Londoners can name without thinking. W1K 1QA behind its plane trees, W1K 1PN opposite with the dining room on the first floor, W1K 7TN with the ballroom underneath it, and W1K 1BE, whose height is the reason half of London can locate it from a bus.

At the southern end the numbers change. One hotel sits on the Hyde Park Corner roundabout at W1J 7QY, and W1J 7DR keeps the quietest frontage of the six. Between them and the park run four lanes of traffic that never entirely stop, which is precisely why the interiors are built to be silent.

Nothing in this house is arranged with any of those hotels, and no hotel here knows our name. A companion comes to the address you give as your invited guest, takes the lift, and has nothing to say to anyone on the way.

The shape of a late booking

The pattern Delphine sees from this row is consistent. A message arrives between six and eight, from somebody who has been in meetings since the morning and has a table already held downstairs or wants one. They name a length rather than a plan, and they want the plan to be somebody else's problem.

So the switchboard makes it one. Delphine proposes two names, confirms the hour in writing, and tells you which of them will be in the lobby and at what minute. Nothing is left as an approximation and nothing is decided at the door. Where a restaurant is involved she will ask whether your companion should meet you at the table or upstairs first, because the two evenings run rather differently.

When the evening runs long, it can be extended rather than stretched. Tell Delphine and she rewrites the booking at the next length on the ladder, so two hours at £500 becomes three at £700, and your companion is given the corrected figure before anything else happens.

Getting here, and getting her here

Hyde Park Corner, on the Piccadilly line, is about 3 minutes from the southern hotels. Marble Arch, on the Central line, is roughly 5 minutes from the northern end. Green Park lies some 8 minutes east through Mayfair, with the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria lines under it.

Your companion arrives by car at the kerb you name, which on this road matters more than usual, since the Park Lane entrances are not all on Park Lane. Delphine asks which door you would like her to use, and the drivers here know the difference between each front entrance and its own side street.

The whole row is central, so the travel is inside the fee with nothing to add. Past the two central zones the taxi in both directions goes into a single written total, which you read before agreeing to it. Your companion takes the fee from you at the door, exactly as written.

Two who know this road after dark

Liana chooses Park Lane precisely because the rooms here are large enough to disappear into, and prefers a late dinner on Old Park Lane where the noise makes a quiet conversation feel private. Nora takes the park side at W1K 1PN, orders simply, finishes what she orders, and arrives fifteen minutes early without ever appearing to have travelled.

Angelika, Luna and Samanta are a few streets east in Mayfair and reach this row in minutes. Every other name in the Salon attends Park Lane on the same tariff, whichever postcode she sleeps in.

Immediately around this address

Behind the row, the Mayfair streets begin at Park Street and run east to Berkeley Square. South, across the Hyde Park Corner roundabout, the Knightsbridge park strip continues the same line of hotels in a different postcode. East along Piccadilly, the Green Park corner takes the late arrivals from the airports. Marble Arch closes the northern end, and Hyde Park itself is simply across the road, which the companions who work this row will always suggest walking into if the hour and the weather agree.