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!