A group of well-bred yet raff­ish gen­tle­flies embarked on a Chaps’ Night Out last night, in search of rare delights and exquis­ite debauch­ery. I won’t both­er you with all the sor­did details, but I think there are a few valu­able lessons that are worth shar­ing.

  • It’s dashed incon­ve­nient to find so many oth­er­wise fine estab­lish­ments closed on an Anzac week­end.
  • When in search of enlight­en­ment and exot­ic delights from the mys­tic East, I would­n’t both­er with Raki.
  • On a night when hordes of be-sneak­ered young ruf­fi­ans have been lured into the city by pop­u­lar music, one has yet anoth­er rea­son to steer well clear of the vul­gar hoi pol­loi of Courte­nay Place in favour of more sedate water­ing holes.
  • When Hawthorn Lounge gets busy, the qual­i­ty of their caipar­in­has can slip quite alarm­ing­ly, yet they can still deliv­er an impec­ca­ble Crown Jew­el Mar­ti­ni.

    • …

  • Med­i­na used to serve a cred­itable selec­tion of tagines, cous­cous and oth­er delights from the Maghreb. It has now emerged from a ren­o­va­tion as “Casablan­ca”, and hor­ror of hor­rors, it now seems more akin to “fast food” than lan­guorous Moroc­can feast­ing.
  • Any self-pro­claimed gen­tle­man who insists upon wear­ing “sports­wear” (oth­er than crick­et whites or thorn­proof tweeds, of course) marks him­self out as a bound­er of the low­est sort, and should nev­er be trust­ed, least of all with the Bac­carat bank.
  • It is impos­si­ble to do any­thing dis­creet­ly when wear­ing a fez.
  • While reward­ing our­selves with a few pots of tea con­tain­ing some­thing sub­stan­tial­ly more for­ti­fy­ing than Lap­sang Sou­chong, we noticed that the staff at Alice had cho­sen a man­ner of dress that the Rev­erend Dodg­son would nev­er have recog­nised. Super­man emp­ty­ing the dish­wash­er? The Flash with a Boston shak­er? What is the world com­ing to?! On the oth­er hand, the delight­ful Miss Hol­ly looked even more delight­ful in a Cat­woman out­fit, so we were will­ing to over­look a lit­tle sar­to­r­i­al anachro­nism.
  • Welling­ton def­i­nite­ly needs more gen­tle­men’s clubs, grand hotels, opi­um dens, speakeasies, whisky bars, Cas­bahs, bur­lesque the­atres and gin palaces. Hos­pi­tal­i­ty entre­pre­neurs of Welling­ton! Oppor­tu­ni­ty awaits!