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‘Art deco lite’ might best describe the look of the Westbury Hotel’s Polo Bar: the bar is marble-topped, the tables are inlaid wood, the pillars chunky and square. Yet perhaps because it’s such a long, large room (no eavesdropping here), the place doesn’t blare its design at you, and the drinks can take precedence.
Or, at least, they could if they weren’t a little lacklustre: the Ketel One martini doesn’t kick you in the head quite as it should, although it contains a very fine oversize olive, and the bellini lacked the scent of summer and that unctuous mix of peach and alcohol that makes the imbiber feel like a drunken wasp.
Not a destination bar, then, but its location makes it a useful escape hatch for weary shoppers fresh from Regent, Oxford and New Bond Streets.