Elite companions for St James's, SW1A and SW1Y, from Jermyn Street to Pall Mall

Jermyn Street is for shirts, cheese and scent: shirtmakers in a row, a cheesemonger that has traded here for well over a century, and Floris, perfumers at number 89 for nearly three centuries. St James's Street falls from Piccadilly towards the palace, past a hatter at number 6 and, at number 3, a wine merchant that has kept the same shop for more than three hundred years.

Pall Mall is the clubs: stone palaces with no name by the door, built for conversation and still used for it. St James's Square, at the centre, keeps a library that lends only to its members. King Street, just off it, is where Christie's has held its sales for two hundred years. Between them run narrow passages with a pub or a tailor tucked inside, and the whole quarter goes very still after nine.

Hotels appear on this page as addresses, not associates. No understanding exists between this house and any of them, and reception is never told whom to expect.

The Stafford, SW1A 1NJ, stands at the end of a lane off St James's Place. Its bar is hung with caps, ties and pennants left by guests over the decades, and beneath it lie wine cellars far older than the hotel. Dukes London, SW1A 1NY, sits close by in its own courtyard, and its bar is known for a martini mixed from a trolley beside your chair, cold enough to be taken slowly.

The Cavendish London, SW1Y 6JF, is the modern building on Jermyn Street, practical and central, its upper rooms looking across the shirtmakers' roofs. Sofitel London St James, SW1Y 4AN, occupies a former bank on Waterloo Place at the Pall Mall end, handy for anyone with meetings in Whitehall. The Ritz, W1J 9BR, marks the quarter's north western corner on Piccadilly.

Most of these hotels sit 3 minutes on foot from Green Park station, where three lines cross: Victoria, Piccadilly and Jubilee. From the top of Jermyn Street, Piccadilly Circus is 5 minutes away and brings in the Bakerloo line. The station for the District and Circle lines, St James's Park, lies around 6 minutes south, reached across the park itself, a lovely walk in daylight.

Your companion is driven from wherever she lives, and the journey costs you nothing: the whole quarter is in Zone 1.

Hotels here are small, and small hotels notice arrivals. That works in your favour. A companion who walks in dressed for dinner, asks for you by first name at the bar and waits there is simply a guest meeting a guest. Tell Octavia whether you would like her in the bar or at the room, and at what minute.

From Octavia's written confirmation, allow about an hour on most evenings. The confirmation itself takes one exchange: the name the hotel holds, the room number, nothing more. Her fee is a private matter between the two of you, settled as the evening begins. The booking page covers everything else.

Guests in town for a week of meetings who would like one evening free of them. Members of the Pall Mall clubs, who understand the rules on guests better than anyone. Visitors who took a suite at Dukes precisely because it is hard to find. They ask for a companion who can carry a conversation through a long dinner, knows her way round a formal table, and never needs reminding that the evening is private.

Seven o'clock, the bar at The Stafford. Jasmin asks the bartender what he would drink tonight, and orders exactly that. She is petite, quick and very good at questions. By half past seven she knows why you are in London and what you would rather not discuss.

Eight o'clock, Jermyn Street. A table at Wiltons, oysters on ice and waiters who have seen everything. A second course, a slow third. Half past ten, Dukes, for one martini each, mixed at the table and drunk slowly, as advised. Eleven o'clock, a walk back through the lane to the hotel door. Four hours, £1,800, her fee settled with her in person when the evening began.

None of our companions lives inside St James's; very few people do. The nearest are across Piccadilly in Mayfair: Luna, whose ideal evening here ends at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Samanta, and Angelika.

From further south and west come Patricia, a watercolourist who will take you to the Mall Galleries first, Margo, who knows the viewing rooms on King Street as well as any dealer, and Lucy and Roxi from Pimlico, a short drive across the park.

Green Park forms the quarter's western edge, with The Ritz on the corner of both. North across the traffic, the Piccadilly page follows the avenue, and Albemarle Street, the house's home, lies just across Piccadilly from the head of St James's Street. Mayfair begins beyond it. Piccadilly Circus lies to the east and Westminster to the south beyond the park, and both are within easy reach on the same terms.