Have you ever been to the hidden restaurant at Selfridges? Alto by San Carlo is only accessible via a particular lift on the ground floor. You rise to the top and arrive at the restaurant reception via a corridor of multicoloured, shiny baubles. My friends Sharon and Sue and I treated ourselves to an end of year lunch there, preceded by a good look at the Christmas windows on Oxford Street.
The Selfridges displays are Disney-themed with Lady And The Tramp, that cute, lively crockery from Sleeping Beauty (below) and the mirror-obsessed vain witch (I know her) from Snow White being the stand-outs. In the corner window, poor Cinderella was very much a cardboard let down. I fear the designers got to the end of the street, ran out of budget and set to work with polyboard, spray mount and scissors. Cinders got a raw deal. Maybe that was the idea.
Inside, after passing through the food hall and seeing a bag of truffle crisps for £5, some discounted shortbread in a tin (£25) and Disney princess biscuits without a price tag, we moved swiftly on to the make-up section, to be guided through the benefits of Victoria Beckham eyeliners. Two of us (mugs) made unnecessary “It’s- Christmas-so-I-can-treat-myself” purchases, and with our improved eyes found the elevator to the rooftop.
Alto provides its “chic Italian dining experience” in a really lovely setting. I had two courses: the artichoke hearts in mint sauce (delicious) followed by a very nice spaghetti puttanesca, washed down with a refreshing icy mocktail. The service has great – the staff make you feel special by taking your coats and, well, by just looking happy. Sharon and Sue shared a bottle of rosé and afterwards we used the corridor of baubles as a catwalk. It’s all about the confidence.
Back outside it was getting dark. The Oxford Street lights shone above us: a canopy of thousands of stars lighting the sky; a magical scene fit for we three princesses.
***
And so to my favourite, the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. Visiting there for Christmas shopping last week, I went to Wenzel’s bakery for lunch – where the vegan sausage rolls are better than any you can buy on the high street – and decided to try my luck paying for it using a rogue Scottish tenner I found in my pocket from a recent trip.
As past experience has shown, trying to using Scottish banknotes in London is a gamble. They should be accepted, but will they be? I approached the counter bravely. Two assistants of eastern European descent smiled.
“Yes please?” said one of them.
“Can I have a vegan sausage roll?”
“That will be £2.35.”
“Do you take Scottish notes?” I asked, feeling a need to even as I handed mine over. “It’s perfectly legal.”
“I prefer not to,” answered the first assistant, bluntly.
Feeling her English wasn’t great, and I thought, “I prefer not to” probably meant, “The boss says we can’t.”
“Sometimes we can take, sometimes we can’t,” said her colleague.
“I prefer not to,” the first assistant explained, “because I have to call head office, and then I talk to someone, and they talk to someone, and you are waiting here…”
“Listen, don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault”, I said, presenting my debit card instead, with a smile.
“It’s not fair,” said the second assistant. “I think it’s racist.”
The three of us half-laugh at her comment, and I head off with a bite.
My new system with Scottish money in London is to use the notes in supermarket self-service tills. They swallow them like hungry hippos.
***
My Christmas really began with celebrations of my birthday (13 December) and the music quiz at the Lexington, near the Angel. It was, as always, a silly blast.
I arrived to a greeting of candles on a cake and my usual team members, Martin, Greg and Andrew, singing happy birthday. Our wonderful – and always very late – host, Paul Guided Missile, arrived, said hello and was gone. Then, suddenly, Santa appeared and announced he would be asking the questions.
There was £60 for the winner, booze for the runner-up and, the most coveted prize, crisps for the best team name. During a short interval, Santa handed out mince pies and I bumped into Lennon Gallagher, who I DJ’d for at a party last year. He told me his brother’s band was playing upstairs. He really is a lovely fella.
Back at the table, I was delighted to identify my favourite Christmas hit, Pipes of Peace by Paul McCartney, being butchered on Santa’s Bontempi in the “guess the song” round.
Scores were totted up and prizes awarded. Our team name, All the Jingle Ladies, did not take the crisps, losing out to Sleigh Another Day (robbed). We did, however, score a very respectable 98 points to finish joint fourth and close behind the winners who, with 99.5, emerged victorious after a tie-breaker to which I knew the answer.
We walked back to the Angel – surely the right Tube station for a London step into Christmas.
Follow Julie Hamill on Instagram. All photos by Julie.
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