How to get a table at Audley Public House

The Audley Public House is on the corner of North Audley Street and Mount Street in Mayfair, opposite the Purdey gun shop where you can buy a gun and a cashmere cape, because the world has changed. The Audley is a vast pale-pink Victorian castle, and it meets Mayfair in grandeur and prettiness. If the Audley looks like it could puncture you with an ornamental pinnacle, it also seems frosted with sugar – but that is money. This is the tourist Mayfair of the affluent American imagination: the pharmacies and grocers have gone, replaced by fashion (Balmain, Simone Rocha) and the spirit of Paddington Bear. Woody Allen shot Match Point in the Audley, and that is the most normal thing about it now.

The Audley is owned by the Duke of Westminster, who sold the lease to Iwan and Manuela Wirth, of Hauser & Wirth and Artfarm, in 2020. They have a very silly art gallery in Somerset, with an adequate restaurant – the Roth Bar and Grill – and a cow shed with a recording of a cow mooing, because people are ridiculous. Above the pub is their Mount Street restaurant, which is insanely expensive, features moderate art by famous artists – this is a Las Vegas trick, buy the worst Monet you can find – and a monumental painting of a naan bread, which isn’t on the menu. The Mount Street restaurant is very fashionable and acts as a sort of bad older sister to the Audley, because the Audley is, though confected, a very good pub indeed. Perhaps the duke insisted the Audley remain a good pub, though how the terms of the lease would enforce that I cannot say: but what else are dukes for nowadays? Pastiche it may be – this is Mayfair, where winged gods on advertising billboards wear knickers for modesty – but it is very good pastiche.