Fitzrovia, W1T, and the hour it gets going before anywhere else

The district was built on advertising, film post production and publishing, and it still keeps those hours. People finish at half past five and are at a table by seven rather than nine. The effect is that a seven o'clock reservation on Charlotte Street is harder to get than a nine o'clock one, which is the reverse of almost everywhere else in W1.

For a booking, that means the useful window is earlier. Ninety minutes at £400 starting at half past six covers a drink and a proper dinner. Two hours at £500 gets you to the end of the second bottle with the room still half full.

Charlotte Street runs the length of the district with dining rooms down both sides, and the BT Tower stands over the whole of it at 177 metres, which means you cannot get lost. Fitzroy Square at the northern end is a Georgian oval with a garden in the middle and almost no traffic. Percy Street, Rathbone Place and Newman Street hold the smaller rooms, and Colville Place is a pedestrian lane you can walk past three times without noticing.

End to end the district is about eight minutes. Nobody drives inside it. What gets timed here is the approach, not the walk.

Goodge Street is three minutes from the centre of the district, Northern line, and it is the one companions use. Tottenham Court Road is six minutes from the southern corner and carries the Central, Northern and Elizabeth lines, which makes it much the quickest arrival from the east or west. Oxford Circus is seven minutes from the bottom on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria.

Cabs come up Tottenham Court Road or across from Great Portland Street, and both move reasonably well after seven. An arrival from anywhere inside Zone 1 generally lands within thirty five minutes of the desk confirming, and from inside W1 rather less.

W1T 1RJ has a drawing room with a fire and a screening room in the basement that is used more than most hotel cinemas. W1T 3NP keeps a lobby bar under a plaster ceiling salvaged from the building’s earlier life, and it stays busy until late. W1T 3NG is built around a courtyard garden you reach through the lobby rather than from the street.

W1T 1PG has a hanging garden two floors up and a lift that opens onto it. W1B 1JA is six minutes west, the oldest grand hotel in the city and the one with the busiest lobby of the five. Serviced flats around Fitzroy Square and Great Titchfield Street are treated exactly the same way. None of these addresses has any arrangement with this desk.

People in town for two or three nights on business that finishes early: production, media, medical visitors for the Harley Street practices a few streets west. Residents of the mansion blocks who want an evening without leaving the district. Guests who have tried Soho and found it loud, and who now book here instead and walk down for the last hour if they feel like it.

Bookings run shorter and earlier than in the theatre postcodes, with ninety minutes and two hours the two most common lengths. Overnight bookings at £1,800 happen most often before an early train from Euston, which is nine minutes north.

Lucy treats a pub and a private dining room as the same evening, which is exactly the right instinct for this district. Sonya holds the best conversation on the list by a clear margin and is worth the longer booking for that alone.

From either side, Rosa walks down from Marylebone in twelve minutes and orders better than you will. Molly comes up from Soho in six. Danielle crosses from Bloomsbury and is at ease in a quiet room. Roxi prefers a snug bar with no music in it, and Milena is built for a long dinner and better across a longer one. The whole list is on On The Books, and everyone travels here on the same figures.

South across Oxford Street the streets tighten into Soho and the evening starts again two hours later. East over Tottenham Court Road the garden squares of Bloomsbury begin within five minutes. West along Mortimer Street the village of Marylebone takes over at Great Portland Street. Further south west, the wider picture of the zone is drawn on the Central London page, and the postcode family is set out at W1. Great Portland Street and Oxford Circus both sit on the boundary.