The Big Smoke

Claridges
This Mayfair institution, itself a byword for old-school glamour and well-bred good taste, doesn’t disappoint. For maximum luxury choose the Ladies to the right of the front entrance, which has pretty floral art deco tiling, carpets and trompe l’oeil murals depicting garden scenes and rose garlands. Cubicles are on the small side but there’s a shelf for bags, and the floral scent and unusual lavatory flush (you pull a lever on the wall) more than make up for their compactness. A polite grandmotherly attendant in a smart navy suit fills an antique-style ceramic basin for you to wash and moisturise your hands with Floris toiletries. In an adjoining room are dark wood dressing tables with large mirrors at which to sit and refresh make-up, brush hair or whatever. The lighting’s just right, too – none of that ghastly strip stuff. Overall, the facilities don’t quite match the breathtakingly grand and spacious turquoise-wallpapered Ladies at the Savoy, and on our visit we couldn’t see the sorts of useful bits and bobs offered at the Ritz, which has a table of perfumes, sewing kit, combs and such. However, as with all communal areas of Claridges, the attention to detail ensures a visit to the facilities is a very agreeable experience indeed.
Claridges, 55 Brook St, W1K 4HA (020 7409 6307) Bond St tube.

Saki
This Japanese bar and restaurant, which opened in May opposite Smithfield Market, boasts London’s only working paperless toilet (aside from those installed in private homes, of course) although obviously this doesn’t apply to urinals. We had imagined futuristic-looking apparatus, but were relieved that the loo looked reassuringly Western. Users control proceedings from a panel of buttons: sit and do the business, then push buttons to commence the cleansing jet of water and drying blast of air. On our visit we were relieved to discover instructions in English (inside each cubicle). The seat was cosily warm and we successfully adjusted both water and air temperature to the required warmth. Cubicles and sinks were spotless, and our hands dried in seconds thanks to the super-powered blow dryer. The Japanese have been using paperless toilets for some 40 years – approximately 90 per cent of Tokyo homes employ them. This may be high-tech relief yet it’s effective, hygienic and fun. It’s also eco-friendly and leaves you feeling refreshingly cleansed.
Saki, 4 West Smithfield, EC1A 9JX (020 7489 7033) Farringdon tube.
Crazy Bear
We’ve yet to discover more disorientating toilets in London. Once you’ve found them (in the basement bar, past the cigar cabinet and along a short, dark, wood-lined corridor) and worked out how to get in (by tentatively pushing mirrored walls) you enter a dark, mirrored chamber with an ethereal purple glow – walls, doors and ceiling are mirrored, the floor is cracked, metallic tiles and there’s even an ornate antique-style mirror hanging on the wall in the Ladies. These lavs, designed by Crazy Bear’s owner Jason Hunt, are far from tacky, although the lighting doesn’t do any favours to girls (and guys) touching up make-up. Still, the cocktails are so delicious and the bar’s so snug you won’t care too much. Molton Brown handwash and moisturiser sits above a long V-shaped sink, and water automatically cascades when required, and as the sink is shared by the Ladies and Gents, there’s also the possibility of livening proceedings with the manual equivalent of footsie. Utterly splendid. Just don’t forget the friendly staff, excellent service and heavenly cocktails as well.
Crazy Bear, 26-28 Whitfield St, W1T 2RG (020 7631 0088) Goodge St or Tottenham Court Rd tube.

Sketch
A pair of sweeping staircases leading up from the circular bar below take you to an entire floor devoted to toilets. Eleven pods, designed by Noe Duchaufour Laurance, are arranged uniformly – a genuine ‘wow’ factor for a first-time visitor. Pods – each contains a loo – are white, floor, ceiling and walls are white, and there’s the odd (yes, white) dining chair nestled against a wall. The overall effect, with its candy shades of pink and green light, is as though you’ve wandered onto a Kubrick film set. Once you’ve installed yourself inside a pod and your eyes have become accustomed to the rose-coloured lighting, it’s certainly cosy; anyone with claustrophobia should proceed with caution. On our visit an attendant dressed as a French maid located vacant pods (all unisex) for anyone who seemed a bit dazed and confused by the whole affair. Old-fashioned sinks are placed at intervals along the side walls. Disappointingly there weren’t any designer toiletries – and trying to apply red lippy in a convex mirror lit by pale green light is a different challenge altogether – but for sheer novelty value, the capsule loos at Sketch scoop the prize.
Sketch, 9 Conduit St, W1S 2XZ (0870 777 4488) Oxford Circus tube.


Sarastro
Spending a penny here is unusual/erotic/offensive – delete according to your attitudes to cubicles decorated in a painted version of the Karma Sutra (girls: the cubicle furthest from the door has the most, erm, ‘colourful’ decor). It’s a touch rough around the edges – and that’s not a referral to the artist visions of bondage and orgies, just that a spruce up (to the Ladies in particular) wouldn’t go amiss. Sarastro caters to the pre- and post-theatre crowd, plus tourists after something a little different, who dine to an operatic soundtrack. In all, only one complaint has been received – a woman wrote to say the pornographic images were unsuitable for children. It can only be concluded that there’s no shortage of kinky opera-lovers out there. It would be inaccurate to describe these small facilities as glamourous and the Ladies (although strangely not the Gents) is filled with Biro’d comments of the ‘phwoar, yes please’ sort, but on the whole most people seem to raise a smile rather than a prudish eyebrow.
Sarastro, 126 Drury Lane, WC2B 5QG (020 7836 0101) Covent Garden tube or Charing Cross tube/rail.