Amid Mayfair’s swanky clubs, is there room for one for the in-betweeners?
Mark Cutler and Mark Alexiou at the Westbury (Vicki Couchman)
How exclusive will Mayfair’s newest nightspot be? “We’ll be the first nightclub to open with triple Michelin-starred chefs,” noted Mark Alexiou, one half of the duo behind Rocking Horse, which will make its debut this spring in one of the capital’s swankiest districts.Late-night Mayfair used to centre on Annabel’s, the venerable nightclub on Berkeley Square. Now high-rollers have a far wider choice of where to let their hair down, with a clutch of new openings in the past two years. Alexiou and his business partner, Mark Cutler, think they have a formula that will mean there is room for one more.
“Our generation, thirty and fortysomethings, want to party but don’t want to go to kids’ clubs full of reality television stars or to a club for the older crowd,” said Cutler. “There is a market for something in between for people who are cool, who want to go out and have a party, without all the bullshit.”
One thing they promise — exclusive won’t mean stuffy. “It will be a party place. If we’re playing Guns N’ Roses, you will be on your seat doing air guitar, not sat down having a nice gin and tonic,” said Cutler.
That
sort of attitude should help Rocking Horse stand out from the crowd. Of all the
newcomers, perhaps the most eagerly anticipated was 5 Hertford Street, the new
venue from Robin Birley, a prominent society figure whose family had previously
owned Annabel’s and its sister venues Mark’s Club and Harry’s Bar. Birley lost a bitter dispute with Annabel’s owner, the rag-trade tycoon Richard Caring, over the rights to use his family name for a new club venture. 5 Hertford Street opened last year in Mayfair’s Shepherd Market at a cost of £30m. Birley declined to comment, but one source familiar with the club insisted it had opened strongly, with about 1,500 members and a further 600 to 700 on the waiting list.
Other new arrivals include Grace Belgravia, the first all-female private club in the area, and Little House Mayfair, a smaller offshoot of the famous Soho media haunt, in which Caring also has a stake. The Arts Club, backed by Arjun Waney, co-founder of Zuma, a top Japanese restaurant, has also proved a hit. And existing clubs have sharpened up. Morton’s, for example, another Berkeley Square stalwart, has been fully refurbished.
The rewards for coming up with the right formula are enormous. David Batchelor, executive director of CBRE, the property agent, said: “If you catch the mood, they can generate hundreds of thousands of pounds per week. But for every one that does that, there’s half a dozen that don’t.”
Gwyneth Paltrow and
Cameron Diaz hit the town (Getty) Alexiou and Cutler, who are
already planning a second Rocking Horse in New York next year, are aware of the
pitfalls. “Very few clubs have stood the test of time,” acknowledged Cutler,
rattling off a handful of names including Annabel’s, Tramp and China White. They
insist their venture will be different. It will boast a contribution on the
design front from Manolo Blahnik, best known for his shoes, and Alexiou and
Cutler suggest that “jet-set meets Hells Angels” is not too much of a stretch
for what they have in mind. The club duo ought to know what it takes to lure the in-crowd — they have been doing it for years. The son of one of Britain’s most sought after divorce lawyers, Alexiou, 37, was the brains behind Tokyo Joe’s, a celebrity haunt he launched when he was in his early twenties. It morphed into Pangaea, an even more popular magnet for the after-dark elite. “It was a place where A-listers paid for their drinks,” noted Alexiou.
He continues to own the Coco Club in Verbier, the pricy Swiss ski resort, but has been itching to take on a fresh project in London. Before settling on Rocking Horse, he had rejected nine or ten other venues but “they were just wrong”.
Cutler, meanwhile, carved out a niche as a property agent bringing some of the world’s leading international restaurants, including Nobu and Cipriani, to London. The 39-year-old later developed his own venues, opening the edgy six-strong Supperclub chain to much acclaim.
This is the first time the two have worked together. The new venture is a collaboration with the upmarket Westbury hotel, where they have taken over the basement. The refit will cost several hundred thousand pounds, according to industry sources, less than usual for this sort of project because a lot of the necessary behind-the-scenes fixtures and fittings are already in place.
In a nod to the hotel’s roots — it was founded by a prominent polo-playing family — the redesign will incorporate various trappings from the sport. And although it will have its own entrance, the Rocking Horse will be able to tap the Westbury for services such as valet parking and food from Alyn Williams and Eric Chavot, who between them have earned three Michelin stars.
At £1,000 a head, the membership fee won’t be the preserve of the super-rich. But don’t be fooled into thinking that Alexiou and Cutler aren’t planning to be as discerning as possible when it comes to deciding who’s in. The pair will head a committee that will decide who gets to join the party. This will be supplemented by a group of “ambassadors” including David Gandy, the male supermodel, and Kelly Marcel, the writer penning the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey.
“We want to bring back a real luxury VIP scene to London,” said Alexiou. The trick, the pair argue, is to breed loyalty, rather than fleece people for the maximum amount of money possible.
“We don’t just want a thousand members who have money. They will move on to the next club when it opens,” said Cutler. “It’s a fickle crowd. We have to make sure we get the right people.”
Alexiou warms to the theme. He wants City folk as well as the creative types, but “the ‘oi boys’ who think they can get a table by paying for it, they’re not coming in . . .”
They also believe that London rather than, say, New York has become the prime destination for many of the international contingent who are likely to form a key part of Rocking Horse’s membership. “London was 10 years behind New York but now fashions are being created here, music is being created here,” said Alexiou. “Kids from the X-Factor are breaking America, the Adeles of the world. London is cool.”