If you’re hanging out in the right places in London’s glitziest postcodes – Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Chelsea – you’re almost guaranteed to be sharing the same lounge bar, menus or cocktails as some of the wealthiest in the capital.
Data crunched in the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List, reveals that the UK holds serious curb appeal among the world’s richest; it is currently home to 165 billionaires with 62 residing in London, according to business magazine Forbes.
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London ranked sixth among ten elite global cities in six different countries, with New York City taking the top spot. These cities collectively house a quarter of the world’s billionaires in 2024.
According to a recent report by Henley & Partners, a global residence and citizenship firm, London is home to 227,000 millionaires.
For those who appreciate world-class dining, elite nightlife, or exclusive wellness experiences alongside London’s ultra-wealthy, these prestigious venues offer unparalleled luxury and discretion.
Bars & Hotels
The Connaught
A roll call of illustrious guests including A-listers, politicians, royalty, tycoons and the top 1% have been heading to the Connaught Hotel since the early 19th Century.
Delivering a concentrated shot of English glamour in the heart of Mayfair, the storied hotel offers all the trimmings of one of London’s best hotels – private butlers, interior designed rooms, Michelin-starred restaurants – and one of the best bars in the world dripping in delicious Art Deco interiors, serving the best Martinis in town.
What to order: The world-famous Connaught Martini.
Dukes Bar
Opened in 1908, the timeless Dukes Bar is purportedly where James Bond creator Ian Fleming ordered his favorite drink ‘shaken, not stirred’.
The birthplace of the fictional British agent’s favourite tipple is high on the top one percent’s credentials, and they flock for the drink; it’s home to some of the best Martinis in the world served by snazzy white-coated mixologists.
Discreetly tucked away in an alley between upscale St James’s and Green Park, privacy and prestige collide to make this time-worn, hushed established a perennial hit among the monied elite luxuriating over the stiffest Martinis in town.
What to order: A martini, ‘shaken, not stirred’.
Claridge’s
London’s Art Deco grande dame, legendary 5-star Claridge’s has been a bastion of luxury hospitality and indulgence since 1812. A colourful history interspersed by two World Wars and having hosted some of the most important and celebrated figures of the modern age, Claridge’s is the sparkliest jewel in London’s luxury hospitality scene.
Claridge’s is home to high society, celebrities, royalty, global dignitaries, billionaire tycoons, A-listers and discerning international guests seeking the heights of luxury and privacy.
Where to go: You can’t go wrong – opt for a suite with views over the Mayfair skyline, indulge in exquisite modern English fare at Claridge’s Restaurant, enjoy traditional afternoon tea in The Foyer, or sip champagne and classic cocktails at Claridge’s Bar.
Scarfes Bar
One of the top 50 bars in the world, packing a one two punch in the luxury stakes is the perennially packed Scarfes Bar in Covent Garden. Paying homage to gentlemen’s clubs of yesteryear, Scarfes pairs exceptional cocktails mastered by the world’s best mixologists with jazz in glorious surroundings – a hardwood bar at the famous bar’s centerpiece.
What to order: The ‘Knock on Wood’, with whisky, cedarwood & acorn and vermouth, is a must try.
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester
Awarded 3 Michelin stars (at time of writing) Alain Ducasse’s eponymous Park Lane restaurant at Mayfair institution The Dorchester sets the benchmark for fine dining in the capital.
Here you’ll find the capital’s ultra-wealthy luxuriating over exquisite and technically excellent French fare overseen by one of the greatest chefs in modern history. You’ll find guests in the private dining space – the Table Lumière – where a seven-course tasting menu starts from £1,600.
What to order: Lobster and langoustines.
Private member’s clubs
Annabel's
Legendary Annabel’s is London’s original profligate Mayfair members’ clubs and one of the capital’s premier nightspots attracting jet-setting, 24-hour party people since the 60’s.
A revolving door of illustrious guests have hit the club’s glitzy dance floor for over six decades – from international glitterati, prime ministers and the world’s richest to public figures and A-listers from the late Queen to Princess Diana, Kate Moss, Lady Gaga and Harry Styles. Members’ identities are fiercely protected to preserve ultra exclusivity.
Annabel’s offers patrons access to four restaurants, seven bars, a headline-hitting discotheque and cigar room.
What to order: Don your sparkliest rocks, head to The Japanese for sashimi washed down with a glass of champagne at The Jungle Bar before hitting the glitziest dancefloor.
5 Hertford Street
Hailed as ‘the most influential members’ club in the world’ and a stalwart on the London’s high-society private members’ club circuit since 2012, 5 Hertford Street is a home from home for Eton-types, royals, politicians, socialites, high-society, A-listers and the world’s old and new money.
Glamour meets power in a powder keg of eclectic luxury – owner and nightclub magnate Robin Birley has perfected a formula that pulls in the biggest names.
Beautiful people fill the dance floor at late-night basement club Loulou’s while an endlessly glamorous warren of indulgent, eccentric English country house inspired spaces filled with Chesterfield armchairs and roaring fireplaces straddled across four townhouses offer members discreet spaces in which to close business deals or brush up on the latest gossip on the society circuit.
Members have access to two restaurants, a nightclub; three bars, a cigar room, cinema room, and an outdoor smoking atrium.
What to wear: Jackets for men are compulsory, no trainers.
Oswalds
The world’s movers and shakers convene behind an unassuming blue door on Mayfair’s Albermarle Street. Opened in 2018 by nightclub mogul Robin Birley and named after his portraitist grandfather, Oswald’s members’ list reads like a roll call of the most important and wealthiest people on the planet.
Guests passing through the threshold of the club’s famous door include Prince William, Beyonce, Madonna and Victoria Beckham.
The strictly no photography policy indoors preserves a thick cloak of discretion at Oswalds – the privacy of its illustrious members is paramount when you’re dealing with billionaire tycoons, head of state and heirs to thrones.
Here, rich and powerful oenophiles come to indulge over the finest wines to the old- world backdrop of eccentric English interiors flecked with chandeliers and roaring fireplaces.
Big name, trophy and rare wines are Oswald’s raison d’etre – Oswald’s applies no corkage fees to wines its members bring in themselves and members are free to cellar up to 12 of their own wines at the club.
Upstairs, new restaurant La Loma offers patrons a South American-inspired menu backed by tequila cocktails.
What to order: A trophy wine, naturally.
The Arts Club
Founded by Charles Dickens and a coterie of high-society friends, erudite minds have been gathering at the celebrated Arts Club in Mayfair since 1863.
Given the influence of the celebrities of the time, the club – an 18th Century townhouse on Dover Street – swiftly became a celebrated haunt of the sharpest minds in the fields of art, science and literature in the capital.
Membership is today more loosely founded on a common appreciation of the creative arts and includes a list of the well-connected and on London’s cultural pulse – royal academicians, deep thinkers, architects, musicians, actors, artists and writers.
Dine in the subterranean social honeypot Supperclub and you might run into sell-out tour musicians and actors.
The clubs regularly hosts a packed rota of performances by the world’s best musicians, talks by artists, performers and leaders in fashion. New art is given an enthusiastic nod in the club’s galleries, which feature a revolving door of emerging and established contemporary artists and photographers.
Patrons can talk shop; all things art, music and literature in the buzzy brasserie on the main floor and the Japanese Kyubi upstairs as well as a new garden bar famous for its G&Ts.
The club offers 16 of the most sought-after hotel rooms and suites in the capital. Only members can stay or book them for their friends.
It’s the only place to be during the annual London Frieze Art fair which brings together the great and the good of the international art scene.
What to order: A refreshing G&T in the new garden bar.
Men-only Gentlemen’s clubs
A bona fide British establishment since the 17th Century, London’s best all-male private members’ clubs – mostly clustered around monied Mayfair, St James’s, Soho and Green Park – have traditionally been the privilege of the UK capital’s monied elite.
Member lists are fiercely guarded but mostly include those with titles – Lords and Sirs – heads-of-state, royalty, A-listers and billionaires sharing an intimate space in which to relax, socialise and network. Some of London’s most famous gentlemen’s clubs include Brook’s, Boodles, East India Club, the Savile Club and White’s.
Spas
The Bvlgari Spa
A favourite among A-listers and billionaires, the bling Bvlgari Spa – below the Bvlgari Hotel in Knightsbridge – offers exquisite treatments among a maze of dark-wood treatment rooms, saunas, steam rooms and ice fountains.
At the spa’s centrepiece is the 25-metre colonnaded swimming pool with its loungers and cabanas clad in textured Vicenza stone. Here you’ll find the capital’s wealthiest reclining in muslin-draped cabanas while sipping on gut-friendly antioxidant shakes or working off last night’s canapes in the discreet, dimly-lit gym.
Top-dollar treatments include hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a Zerobody dry float experience, and a rejuvenating Recovery Suite with an ice bath. The sparkly jewelry brand hauls in big names in the field of beauty with star residencies led by world’s best wellness and beauty experts.
What to order: Roll back the years with a Crowning Glory Facial designed by one of the most sought-after beauty experts in the world.
The Lanesborough Club & Spa
A lifestyle destination for London’s well-heeled, moments from Hyde Park, The Lanesborough Club & Spa is one of the city’s glitziest spas with a spectacular menu of treatments on offer.
Crowned ‘Best Spa in London’ at the Good Spa Awards 2023’ here you’ll find A-listers having muscle-melting massages or rolling back the years with Botox treatments delivered by the spa’s in-house, aesthetics-doctor-to-the stars.
Many of the spa’s guests will be travelling the short journey from one of the many regency style suites in the lavish Lanesborough Hotel – one of the capital’s best addresses – which takes its design cues from a splendid 19th century mansion. The Royal Suite, at £26,000 a night, is supposedly the most expensive in London.
What to order: Get your glow back with a Goldsilk Face Therapy which uses secret ingredients.
Aman Spa at The Connaught
Tucked away in one of the most discreet, billionaire-friendly hotels in the capital, Aman Spa at The Connaught delivers the very best in mind and body treatments in glossy, dark and sultry surroundings.
A chlorine-free pool sits at the centrepiece with glamorous guests doing laps to the background of black-tiled water-fountain-wall. Personal trainers are on hand to deliver an energy boost in the boutique gym.
Treatments are Asian-inspired by China, Japan and Tibet with the apex of bliss experienced via Aman Spa’s 3-hour Signature Journeys which encompasses treatments rooted in grounding, purifying and nourishing.
What to order: The Signature Journeys experience if you’ve got an afternoon spare.
ESPA Life at the Corinithia
The flagship outpost of beauty brand ESPA, four floors of indulgent bliss soothe, tone and rejuvenate the stressed out minds and bodies of the rich and powerful.
ESPA Life is one of the largest luxury spas in the capital and a destination outside of the allure of Whitehall’s 5-star Corinthia hotel. Guests have access to no less than 17 treatment rooms with golden crocodile-skin-print walls, a black marble thermal floor, flickering fireplaces, swimming pool, vitality pool, amphitheatre sauna, ice fountain, and marble heated lounge. A private spa can be booked for VIPs that need total privacy.
What to order: A cutting-edge Dr. Barbara Sturm facial.
Claridge's Spa
The world’s top 1% are treated to top-to-toe luxury in Mayfair’s Claridge’s Hotel’s magical sanctuary designed by Asia’s top interior starchitect André Fu.
A darling among the world’s royalty, politicians, A-listers, celebrities and monied, the grande dame of the luxury hotel scene preserves old world charm but delivers a shot of cutting-edge design and treatments via its 2022-opened, Japan-inspired spa.
The five-floor below ground cavernous expansion of the Claridge’s experience translates to a top shelf holistic wellness experience backed by results-driven technologies.
Claridges’ guests can steal a moment of calm in the heated pool with cabanas set back from the water, steam rooms, a sauna or indulge in seven wellness rooms where treatments begin and end with Asian-inspired rituals such as a foot massage.
What to order: A workout for the face, the FaceGym Treatment will shave years off while toning worn facial muscle.
Other notable spas: The Dorchester Spa, 45 Park Lane, Guerlain Spa at Raffles, The Spa at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, Ushvani.
