Piccadilly, W1J: a companion for the hour before the curtain and the hotel bar after

The name comes from the piccadill, a stiff lace collar of the early seventeenth century. A tailor who made his fortune selling them built a house near the present Circus, Londoners nicknamed it Piccadilly Hall, and the road took the joke and kept it.

Much of the avenue has the same staying power. Hatchards has sold books here for more than two centuries. Fortnum & Mason has sold tea and hampers on Piccadilly for more than three centuries, and its clock still sends two small figures out to bow on the hour. Burlington House holds the Royal Academy behind a courtyard anyone may walk into, and St James's Church, by Wren, keeps a small market in its yard. The Wolseley, built in the 1920s to sell motor cars, now serves the grandest breakfast in the West End.

A list of addresses, nothing more. None of these hotels has any connection with the house, and your companion arrives as your guest.

The Ritz, W1J 9BR, is the centrepiece: an arcade along the pavement, a Palm Court for tea and a restaurant above the park. The Athenaeum, W1J 7BJ, further west, faces Green Park and is well placed for the Piccadilly line. At the far western end, InterContinental London Park Lane, W1J 7QY, stands at Hyde Park Corner, large and modern, its upper floors looking across to Wellington Arch.

Behind the avenue on the Mayfair side, Stratton Street holds The May Fair Hotel, W1J 8LT, with a busy bar and a private screening room of its own, while Half Moon Street holds Flemings Mayfair, W1J 7BH, small, Georgian and very quiet. Both are a minute or two from the Piccadilly pavement.

The avenue has a station at each end and one in the middle. Piccadilly Circus is 2 minutes from the avenue's theatre end, where the Bakerloo line crosses the Piccadilly. Halfway along, about 4 minutes from the avenue's midpoint, Green Park is the one stop with Victoria, Jubilee and Piccadilly trains together. For the hotels near the park's western tip, Hyde Park Corner is some 8 minutes away, and only the Piccadilly line calls there.

Your companion travels by car, and since the whole avenue is Zone 1, the car is our concern, not yours.

A theatre evening has fixed points, which makes it simple to arrange. Tell Octavia the play, the curtain time and where you would like to eat first, and she will set the meeting half an hour before the table. Most West End curtains rise at half past seven, so a companion who meets you at six in a Piccadilly bar leaves time for two courses before the play.

Octavia confirms your companion's name, the fee and her arrival in writing, and for a request made that afternoon she normally arrives inside the hour. She checks the hotel and the room once. Buy the tickets for two in your own name. Her fee is hers to receive from you when you meet, before the first drink, so the rest of the evening needs no arithmetic.

Theatre lovers staying in the grand hotels, who would rather not watch a play alone. Visitors to the Royal Academy's summer exhibition or its evening openings, which make a fine first hour. Guests whose London routine is breakfast at The Wolseley and dinner a short walk away, and who want company for the second half of the day. They ask for someone curious, punctual and glad to talk about what they have just seen.

Six o'clock, the bar at The Ritz. Lea arrives from Belgravia and, before her coat is off, has noticed the ceiling. One glass. Half past six, a short walk east to The Wolseley for an early dinner under its high arches, two courses and no pudding, coffee finished before seven fifteen.

Half past seven, the curtain at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, ten minutes' walk away. At the interval she has a firm view on the second act before it starts. Ten o'clock, the final bow, and a walk back along Piccadilly to the hotel door. Four hours, door to door, £1,800.

Mayfair is the nearest home: Luna, who chooses her plays as carefully as her wine, Angelika, who will want the Academy first, and Samanta. Lea, Patricia and Violetta come up from Belgravia, and Margo and Sonya from Knightsbridge, all along the Piccadilly line's route.

For a gentler afternoon, Rosa knows the way to the Fortnum's tea salon and judges every scone. For a bookshop before dinner, Liana and Hatchards are an excellent pairing.

Piccadilly has pages for what lies on either side. To the south, Green Park and then the lanes of St James's. To the north, Albemarle Street and Dover Street climb into Mayfair. Where it meets the Circus, Soho begins, and beyond Hyde Park Corner at the western end lies Belgravia; both are served at the same rates, without a page here.