Spies, Pubs, and the Karate Kid
Five days in London, with the best of us
Cheers to Borough Market! Four friends: plan - taste everything.
After two days in Málaga with Walter, Scott and I flew to London — and Part Two began.
(If you're new here, the Spain story is in the last post.)
Phoebe and I have been friends since the third grade. Her dad and Scott's dad graduated high school together in our hometown in Kentucky. Her son and my sons are six months apart and have been friends their whole lives. We've traveled together. We've raised kids together. We've held each other up through a lot of years.
This was their first time in London. Scott and I have been many times. So we got to do something we love almost as much as London itself: hand the city to someone you love.
Sunday & Monday: Spies, Saluted Guards, and a Vesper at Dukes
We checked into St. Ermin's, a red-brick Victorian hotel near St. James's Park with a wonderfully deceptive past. During WWII and the Cold War, MI6 officers met agents here. Churchill's Special Operations Executive operated in the building. The Cambridge Five spy ring reportedly used it as a rendezvous point. Ian Fleming and Noël Coward both had ties to its wartime intelligence scene.
It's also a beautiful hotel that serves an excellent gin and tonic on the upstairs terrace, which is what we did.
The terrace at St. Ermin's. Plotting, but in a friendly way. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/lonse-st-ermins-hotel-autograph-collection/overview/
Monday belonged to Scott. He's a lifelong Churchill admirer, so we spent the morning at the Churchill War Rooms — the underground bunker where the British government ran the war from 1940 to 1945. Worth every minute, even if you've been before. The clocks are still set to the moments rooms were last used.
We happened to be in London for the third anniversary of King Charles's coronation, which meant a 62-gun salute by the Tower and changing-of-the-guard ceremonies around Horse Guards Parade. We caught glimpses on our walk through St. James's Park, past Buckingham Palace, and around to Westminster.
That afternoon we did a quiet first visit to Dukes — the discreet little hotel bar in St. James's where Ian Fleming was a regular and where bartenders wheel a cart of No. 3 gin and lemon peel to your table and make the martini in front of you. Cold, dry, exactly as Bond described it.
The Vesper at Dukes. Stirred, in person, with reverence. https://www.dukeshotel.com
Then a late-afternoon walk turned into a discovery. The Two Chairmen — a tucked-away Westminster pub we'd never noticed before, dating to roughly 1729. The unusual name comes from sedan chairs: enclosed seats carried by pairs of men who ferried wealthy passengers around London before taxis existed. Westminster being full of officials and aristocrats who needed transport, the pub became the chairmen's local. We sat with pints under low ceilings and felt the centuries.
The Two Chairmen, established before the United States existed. https://www.greeneking.co.uk/pubs/greater-london/two-chairmen?utm_source=g_places&utm_medium=locations&utm_campaign=HT_pubpage
Tuesday: The “Besties” Arrive
Phoebe and Pat landed Tuesday morning.
The Besties. Wheels-down and immediately ready.
We met them in the lobby, hugged hard, and went straight up to the terrace for gin and tonics made with St. Ermin's house gin — because if you've just flown to London, you should probably start with a gin. Then we plotted the rest of the day.
What followed was a very English afternoon:
High tea at Fortnum & Mason — finger sandwiches, scones, tiny cakes, a teapot count that got away from us.
Back to Dukes for a second round of Vespers — because Phoebe and Pat had to experience the cart.
A stroll past Westminster and Big Ben, the obligatory photos, the sun finally cooperating.
Wednesday: Crowns, Pub Crawl, and Robert at Chutney Mary
At The Tower
Wednesday started at the Tower of London — the Crown Jewels, the ravens, the Beefeater walks, the whole thousand-year operation. We then strolled along the river, past London Bridge (still not falling down — Tower Bridge is the photogenic one), and worked our way back toward Westminster for a proper pub crawl.
First stop: The Albert, an old favorite. Named for Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who'd died only the year before its opening. The reason it feels so special today is that it survived the Blitz almost untouched — most of Victoria Street around it was damaged or rebuilt, but The Albert remained. It's actually the only surviving building from the original first phase of Victoria Street. Standing among the modern office towers now, it looks gloriously, defiantly out of place.
Second stop: The Two Chairmen, this time with the full crew, so we could share the discovery. Same low ceilings, same centuries. https://www.greeneking.co.uk/pubs/greater-london/albert?utm_source=g_places&utm_medium=locations&utm_campaign=HT_pubpage
Then a quick wardrobe change at the hotel and on to Chutney Mary — the elegant Indian restaurant in St. James's — for dinner with Robert and Vonnie.
(If you've followed along here, you've already met them — Sonoma, the casita, the Michelin night at Enclos.)
Robert always picks the restaurant. Robert always picks the wine. Robert always orders for the whole table. We've stopped looking at menus when we eat with him — by now it's a bit — and the food is always extraordinary. Wednesday at Chutney Mary was no exception. https://www.chutneymary.com
Thursday: Borough Market and the Karate Kid
Thursday was the day the trip had been pointed at all along.
We started at Borough Market, my favorite place in London and one I knew Phoebe — fellow market-lover — would adore. There has been a market on this site for roughly a thousand years. Traders were selling food near the old London Bridge in the eleventh century. The current market officially dates to 1756, but the bones go much deeper.
Spain. Croatia. Britain. France. Lunch in four countries before noon. https://boroughmarket.org.uk
The four of us spent the morning and most of the afternoon browsing, tasting, drinking Pimm's cups in the middle of the day, and not even pretending to make a plan. Spanish jamón. Croatian truffle pasta. British cheeses. French pastries. We didn't need lunch after that. Or dinner, frankly. (We had dinner anyway.)
That night was the reason we'd come.
The Karate Kid — yes, that Karate Kid — has been adapted for the stage, and the production was opening at the Wimbledon Theatre. The screenplay is by our friend Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote the original 1984 film (and Taken, and The Fifth Element, and most of Luc Besson's filmography for that matter — Robert has been a working screenwriter for forty-some years and his fingerprints are everywhere).
This was the opening of the stage version, and Robert and Vonnie's friends had flown in from all over the world to be there. Ben and Jennifer came from Hong Kong. Former cast members from the St. Louis production flew in to see the new staging. The pre-show party was the most international room I'd been in in a long time.
The plan was to sneak a Crane Kick pose behind Robert and Vonnie's backs — the iconic one-legged stance from the movie Robert wrote forty years ago — and casually mention it later. We were caught immediately. To Robert and Vonnie's enormous credit, they got in on it instead of shutting us down. The man who wrote the screenplay, posing alongside three women trying to imitate the most famous moment in his entire career.
Three Cranes, one screenwriter, one wife, and Ben from Hong Kong — all caught laughing. Wax on. https://www.thekaratekidthemusicaluk.com
Vonnie was radiant in teal and green. She literally looked proud as a peacock as she beamed at Robert all night — the ambassador of fun, doing her best ambassadorial work. The show was a hit. Robert was generous with photographs and a good sport as everyone vied for his attention and showered him with well-wishes and praise.
Robert and Alan H Green who was cast in the St. Louis production. Wax on, wax off, all over again.
And then home
Friday morning we packed up. Goodbyes with the Besties in the lobby. A long flight ahead.
I started this trip in Málaga with Walter — a friend I met in London, in 1985, on a summer course as a nineteen-year-old from Cadiz, Kentucky. I ended it in London with Phoebe — a friend from the third grade — and Robert — a friend from a different decade and a different coast — and our husbands, who keep showing up alongside us through all of it.
The friends keep finding each other. The cities keep being good to us.
More to come. Now back to Nashville.
