Martini hour at Dukes: the trolley, the twist and the gentle rule of two

Dukes Bar is not large. A few low tables, armchairs, soft lamps and paintings, in a hotel tucked into the far corner of St James's Place, reached across a small courtyard lit by gas lamps. You could walk along the lane a hundred times without suspecting it was there. And yet among people who care about drinks, it is spoken of in the same breath as the great bars of the world, for one reason: the martini.

The hotel's literary connection helps. Ian Fleming is said to have drunk here, and the bar is often credited with giving James Bond his taste for a very cold, very strong martini. Whether that is exactly true matters less than the fact that the drink lives up to the story. The bar sits in the heart of St James's, three minutes from Green Park station, and it is at its best between six and eight.

The drink is not made behind a counter and carried over. It comes to you. A bartender in a white jacket wheels a trolley to your table, and the martini is built beside your chair while you watch.

The martini began life sweeter than it ends here. Its likely ancestor, the Martinez of the late nineteenth century, mixed gin with sweet vermouth in generous proportion. Through the twentieth century the balance kept shifting, the vermouth retreating a little with every decade, until the very dry martini of the post-war bar was a glass of cold gin with a rumour of vermouth somewhere in the room.

Dukes takes that logic to its conclusion. The freezer replaces the ice, the vermouth becomes a few drops, and the lemon does the talking. It is less a cocktail than a temperature, and that is the whole of its charm.

The result is almost pure spirit at a very low temperature, silky rather than sharp, and a great deal stronger than it tastes. Ordering one needs very little vocabulary.

Dukes is known for gently limiting guests to two martinis, and after tasting one you understand why. The measures are generous, the spirit is undiluted, and the cold hides the strength until you stand up. A third is not a third drink; it is the end of the evening.

For a guest with a companion, the rule is a blessing. Two martinis are the right length for a first meeting: long enough for two people to relax into the evening, short enough that dinner will still taste of something. If the conversation is too good to leave, switch to wine or water and stay. Nobody at Dukes will think less of you.

And if a martini is simply not your drink, order anything else without apology. Your companion may do the same, and often will.

From Dukes, the evening has several easy next moves. The Ritz is a two minute walk. Wiltons and the other Jermyn Street tables lie a few minutes' walk east. And at the end of the lane, a path leads into Green Park, for a breath of air between the aperitif and the table.

It works equally well in reverse. Dine elsewhere, then come back to Dukes for a single late martini before the lift or the car. Either way, a companion who meets you here will know exactly what she wants before she sits down, and she will not need the trolley explained.

A small bar magnifies everything: voices, telephones, even scent. Keep the conversation at the level of your own table, take calls outside in the courtyard, and let the bartender work without an audience of questions while he mixes. If every table is taken when you arrive, wait in the lounge rather than hovering by the door; a place is usually found.

Your companion knows the room. She messages from the courtyard as she arrives, crosses straight to your table, and greets you like a friend who is five minutes late for a long-standing arrangement. The trolley, by then, is already on its way.

Milena is the obvious introduction. Her St James's evenings begin at Dukes, and she has firm views on whether a second martini is ever wise. She is one of our statuesque companions: direct, glamorous and entirely without pretension. Karolina, from our raven haired companions, likes her martini dry and her conversation drier, and she is equally at ease in this room.

Martini hour on its own is an hour at £600. With dinner afterwards, the luxury dinner companion evening runs four hours for £1,800. For anything longer, consult the ladder and send Octavia a note through booking.