There have been many imitations but the original club in St Martin’s Lane can certainly lay claim to be being London’s most established and most famous gentleman‘s club. The first to bring topless table dancing to the capital in 1996, it has recently acquired a licence for fully nude dancing, and also introduced a new menu at its restaurant.

The Venue
You enter into an upstairs bar area, where some of the 100 or so women on duty each night chat with the customers. Here you can look onto a podium where ladies gyrate two at a time to sounds as diverse as Chase & Status, Beyonce and other mainly urban-flavored tunes. On the other side is the elevated restaurant area, which seats 30-40 diners in the main area and more in the private booths behind. Downstairs is where most of the action happens, though, and this is an area where the focus is on the catwalk in the middle of the room, where a seemingly never-ending succession of very beautiful women strut their stuff. The drinks are dispensed at the bars at either end of the room, but if you’re lucky you’ll secure some room on the leopard print-covered furniture close enough to the floorshow to tuck a few notes into the garter of your favourite dancer. You can be guaranteed of a conversation, too, and you won’t need to wait long before someone asks you if you fancy disappearing into a side room for a private dance (£20).

The Atmosphere
Not short of a celebrity visitor or two - the waiter in the restaurant divulges a story about a certain champion boxer who comes once a month and always orders the rack of lamb (£23.50) - the Stringfellows’ clientele is quite affluent, predominantly male and out to party. On any given night you may find senior City workers, or a big contingent of regional delegates from a steel conference, which is apparently pretty typical of the type that usually visits. The atmosphere is raucous rather than rowdy, though, and there’s certainly no-one staggering around drunk, acting inappropriately or being disrespectful to the dancers. The club’s bouncers, meanwhile, are discreet and friendlier than you might expect, and their presence is low key.

The Food
The menu isn’t huge but what is there is very much in tune with the opulent, decadent surroundings. For starters, there’s a top notch Scottish smoked salmon (£13), which is exceptionally tasty, and a king prawn and shrimp cocktail (£15.50) also gets top marks. Other starter options include chicken Caesar salad (£9.50), seared medallion of fillet steak (£16.50) and half a baby lobster (£19.50).

The main course is all about the steaks and the generous 12oz Scotch rib-eye (£23.50) is a definite highlight. Fish eaters can choose from the likes of pan fried fillet of wild sea bass (£27.50), a 16oz Dover sole (£27.50) and North Atlantic cod (£17.50). If you opt for the latter, it arrives with gooey mushy peas and chunky chips, and it proves to be a substantial and succulent feast.

From a choice of five desserts, the warm chocolate fudge cake and the Belgian waffles (both £8) are crowd pleasers, both of which come in plentiful supply with a healthy dollop of ice cream.

The Drink
Drinks at the bar are at the top end of the club scale, with beers checking in around the £5 mark. The wine list is impressive, with a choice of French, Italian, Spanish, Australian and Californian produce, but it’s not all geared towards expense accounts - alongside the Californian Opus One 2003 (£475) and Louis Roederer Cristal Rose 2002 champagne (top of the shop at £1,995 per magnum or £850 a bottle), there are plenty of others residing closer to the £30 mark. A mellow Monmaine Chablis (£45) is a good choice and matches the fish well.

The Last Word
The original and still the best. Stringfellows has heaps more atmosphere than other establishments of this type, and unless you really push the boat out it needn’t cost you more than anywhere else. While Stringfellows will probably always be famous for things other than its restaurant, this is definitely fine dining with exquisite ingredients and all the silver service trimmings.

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