London, Mayfair

Mayfair keeps its shape in streets rather than avenues. Visit London places the district, with neighbouring St James's, in a pocket of central London between Hyde Park, Oxford Street, Soho and Buckingham Palace, bounded by Park Lane to the west, Piccadilly to the south, Regent Street to the east and Oxford Street to the north. Three streets hold the essentials, and the day organises itself around them, in that order.

Savile Row runs between Vigo Street and Conduit Street, and its trade is announced in the windows: cloth, cut and patience. The Row's story, as its houses tell it, begins with James Poole, who began his professional life in London in 1806 as a linen draper and was soon stitching military tunics. His son Henry inherited the business in 1846 and opened the firm's entrance onto Savile Row. Patronage made the street: Napoleon III granted the house its first royal warrant in 1858, and Queen Victoria hers in 1869.

The Row has kept its range. Visit London names Henry Poole & Co. as the oldest of its tailors and credits the house with the dinner jacket. Anderson & Sheppard and Richard James stand for the traditional and the contemporary ends of the street, and Banshee of Savile Row cuts for women. At No. 3 the register changes: the rooftop where the Beatles gave their last public performance. The tailors work by consultation, so book ahead and arrive unhurried.

South across Piccadilly, St James's Street holds the merchant. Berry Bros. & Rudd, on its own account Britain's oldest wine and spirits merchant, was founded in 1698 by the Widow Bourne, who established a grocer's at No. 3 opposite St James's Palace, in the year it became the monarch's principal residence. The firm still trades from No. 3, still under the Sign of the Coffee Mill that has hung outside the shop for centuries, and it remains family-owned and run, supplying the Royal Family since the reign of George III.

The merchant now works around the corner too. The Wine Shop stands at 63 Pall Mall and the Spirits Shop at No. 1 St James's Street, both open Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 7pm, and Saturday to 6pm. One bottle or a cellarful are equally welcome at the Widow Bourne's shop by the palace, the house says. Go in the afternoon, when there is time to talk about what the bottle is for.

The third street is for the end of the day. Mount Street has its gardens, a secluded green with benches, and at Nos. 41 to 43 The Audley, a Victorian pub with wood panelling that Visit London recommends for a pre-dinner drink. The hour itself belongs a short walk south in St James's, at Dukes Bar, within the Dukes London hotel.

Dukes Bar was a regular haunt of Ian Fleming, and it is thought, as Visit London tells it, that the bar's martini stood behind the Vesper of the Bond books. The drink is prepared on a trolley and served in ice-cold glasses; a wait at busy times is part of the arrangement. Order the martini. The Row in the morning, the merchant in the afternoon, the trolley at the hour when the light goes: Mayfair rewards the sequence.