Jacket, tie and a room that rises to meet you: why formality still works at The Ritz
A jacket and tie are still requested of gentlemen at The Ritz, and the evening is better for it. The rooms, the code, the small courtesies, and how a companion makes the ceremony feel easy.
A hotel that still asks something of you
Most luxury hotels now work very hard to ask nothing of their guests. The Ritz, on Piccadilly since 1906, is one of the few that still asks something, and the something is mainly a jacket. Arrive dressed for it and the building meets you halfway. Chandeliers, gilt, mirrored walls and a Long Gallery running through the ground floor: none of it is subtle, and none of it was ever meant to be.
César Ritz opened the hotel with the architects Mewès and Davis, in the manner of a Louis XVI château, and the arcade along the Piccadilly pavement was modelled on the rue de Rivoli in Paris. First time visitors often look for the front door beneath those arches. The main entrance is round the corner on Arlington Street, which is where cars set down and where a companion arriving by car will walk in.
The hotel holds the corner where Piccadilly meets the edge of Green Park, and in the evening it is the park side of the building that matters.
The code, as it stands
At the time of writing, gentlemen are asked for a jacket and tie in the Restaurant and the Palm Court, and smart dress is expected throughout the public rooms. Jeans and sports shoes are not welcome in the formal rooms. Rules like these change quietly, so read the hotel's current wording before the evening rather than discovering it at the door.
Your companion dresses to the same standard without being asked. Expect a dress that belongs under chandeliers, a coat she can surrender at the door without a second thought, and jewellery chosen to catch candlelight rather than compete with it. Mention the Restaurant when you write to Octavia, and the companion she proposes will know exactly which room she is dressing for.
The code is not a hurdle. It is a promise that everyone in the room has made the same small effort, and that is why the room feels the way it does.
Three rooms, three temperatures
The public rooms suit different parts of an evening, and it helps to know which is which.
Beyond the three rooms below, the hotel keeps private dining rooms in William Kent House, the eighteenth century mansion next door. That is a larger undertaking, arranged with the hotel directly, but for an anniversary or a birthday it is worth asking about.
Why ceremony helps an evening
A formal room does something useful for two people who have only lately met. It gives them roles. A chair is drawn out, a bottle is presented, the courses arrive in a known order, and within that order the conversation is free to wander wherever it likes. Informality asks you to invent the evening as you go along. Ceremony has already written the first act.
It also slows everything down. Dinner at The Ritz is not hurried, and it is not meant to be. Four hours pass easily between the Rivoli and the last coffee, which is why the four hour dinner at £1,800 is the length most guests choose for this hotel.
And it flatters. There are few rooms in London where both people at a table look better than in the gold light over the park, and few companions who do not enjoy dressing for it.
Small courtesies that carry
Grand rooms magnify small manners, in both directions. A handful of habits make the evening glide.
Before and after the gilt
The streets around the hotel frame a dinner beautifully. Before it, walk down St James's Street past the old shopfronts, or spend ten minutes in the park while the light goes. After it, a nightcap at Dukes, two minutes away on St James's Place, or a slow walk east along Piccadilly past the Royal Academy while the traffic thins. If you are staying elsewhere in St James's, the walk home becomes one more chapter of the evening, not its conclusion.
For guests staying at The Ritz itself, the evening can close without a coat: a last drink in the Rivoli, then the lift. Your companion knows the building and will take her leave, or stay on, exactly as Octavia's confirmation set out.
Companions at home under chandeliers
Karolina knows the Rivoli well enough to say which of its details are original, and she says it quietly, for your ears alone. Violetta, at 178 cm the tallest companion we introduce, belongs to our statuesque companions and carries a long dining room without the least effort. For a guest who would like a companion in her thirties, Margo, from our thirties list, brings the composure of the auction rooms to the table.
An hour at the Rivoli is £600 and three hours are £1,500; longer arrangements are priced under rates. Send Octavia the date through booking, and mention the dress code: your companion will already have it in hand.
Asked after reading
The hotel's written code is aimed at gentlemen, but your companion will dress to the room in any case. Expect an evening dress or elegant tailoring, never anything casual.
Yes. The Rivoli Bar makes a lovely single hour, and many guests begin there and decide on dinner afterwards.
It is a grand one, which suits some guests perfectly. If you would prefer somewhere quieter for a first hello, begin at a smaller bar nearby and cross to The Ritz for dinner.