Sticky floors and rum drinks are out, mushroom cocktails and house party playlists are in! Chelsea’s new-old club is set to be the most hedonistic, celebrity-studded place in town, says Simon Mills
For decades, King’s Road seemed to have secured the royal warrant on nightclubbing. From Sloane Square to the World’s End and beyond, from the 1920s to the 2000s, the two-mile stretch of the originally private throughway — once used by Charles II to ride out to the hunting grounds of Kew — was a veritable covert of boîtes, discos, hang-outs and debs’ delight dive bars, reported by Standard.
And for what once seemed like forever, there was The 151 Club (“one five one”), the diviest Chelsea dive of all, affectionately nicknamed the “One Dive One” (and “One Five Slum”) by its Sloane-sleaze regulars.
A sort of anti-Annabel’s — sticky-floored, lovably insalubrious (like Henry’s first South Ken bedsit) — and hidden away behind a pair of hush-hush, postbox red doors, the hard-to-get-into, King’s Road after-hours was always full of sloshed young men.
One habitué recalls a distinctly worse-for-wear night highlighted by a PR industry friend who disappeared under a table by the dancefloor, emerging five minutes later with a grin on his face and pair of knickers in his mouth. “I’ve just asked Miranda to marry me,” announced the happy chin, now in Miranda’s lap. “And she said YES!”
Hidden away behind a pair of hush-hush, postbox red doors, the hard-to-get-into, King’s Road after-hours was always full of sloshed young men
Jerry Hall, Bob Geldof, Princess Diana’s lover James Hewitt, the King’s late god-daughter Tara Palmer-Tomkinson were all 151 regulars, along with Prince William and Prince Edward.
Prince Harry liked to avoid the paparazzi by exiting the 151 commando style, via the fire escape — an SAS-type caper which quickly became a health and safety issue, the 151’s proprietor ordered to spend £1,200 resurfacing the back garden in case the young prince and Taliban-battling soldier slipped and hurt himself during his next late-night manoeuvre.
Then, after the Covid lockdowns, the 151, rocking raucous late nights on King’s Road since 1985, lost its lease and shuttered its infamous red doors for good.
Oh dear. King’s Road suddenly seemed like such a dreadful bore. With the end of 151, Chelsea appeared to have stopped going out out. Even the last Sloane standing — the royals’ posher, non-sticky floored refuge Raffles at 287 King’s Road (think Prince William and Kate Middleton, a Chelsy Davy-squiring pre-Meghan Prince Harry etc) — has recently gone to ground too.
It was a huge sea change for the area which for so long had provided a city haven for the high-end hedonism of London’s well-heeled.
Back in the day, deliciously iniquitous, girl-chasing/model boy-abundant, after-hours spots like Crazy Larry’s, Main Squeeze, The Chelsea Drug Store, Come the Revolution et al lived among swinging boutiques, smart furniture stores and posh apartment blocks. King’s Road even had London’s first lesbian bar, The Gateways, first opened in the 1930s, in a basement behind a green door at 239.
At 107 King’s Road was the super exclusive Club dell’Aretusa which attracted John Lennon, George Harrison, Sammy Davis Jr, David Bailey, Twiggy and Princess Margaret, a double-page spread in a 1968 edition of the Evening Standard once asking: “Are you one of the beautiful people? Simple test: can you get in to the dell’Aretusa?”
In 1982, the same address was taken over by Welsh playboy Dai Llewellyn and became Wedgies. Dirty Dai’s gardener brother Roddy was Princess Margaret’s toyboy lover for a while, gifting Wedgies a royal seal of approval by proxy — Prince Andrew, during his pre-Fergie “Randy Andy” days, was a regular, Dai’s annual “Deb of Year” party a hot ticket in the Golf GTI and ra-ra-skirted 1980s. Then, it all got very boring.
But what’s this coming over the hill? A Cadogan Estate-endorsed dream team of crack ambiance coordinators and celebrity wranglers is here to save the Royal Borough’s nightlife. Marc Jacques Burton, Piers Adam and Mark Cecil — hyper-connected veterans of the K&C scene (let’s call them the SW Three) — have re-assembled, Expendables-style, to get Chelsea bopping again.
The trio’s new club The Rex Rooms opens next month at — you guessed it — 151 King’s Road. A two-room cocktail bar lounge and discotheque — with the prospect of a stellar guest list of celebs and aristos, artists and athletes, artful decor, go-go dancers and a late licence — promises to bring back the flirty, carefree nights of the 1960s (1970s and 1980s).
You might remember the SW Three’s names from the naughty Noughties. Finance for The Rex Rooms comes from Mark Cecil, a hedge funder/capital markets expert at West End property investment broker Capital Rise. A K&C lifer, at the centre of both Chelsea’s and Mustique’s socials and shenanigans for more than 30 years, Cecil is a National Portrait Gallery trustee and brings in more money muscle from private equity outfit Limestone Capital and Moss & Freud film producer Jason McNab. Cecil is also Mick Jagger’s best mate.
All those people came because our policy was to be the opposite of a celebrity magnet. We weren’t trying to be cool — the interior was Polynesian and kitsch. The DJ’s playlist was like something you’d get at a wedding or house party
Adam and Burton were part of the team behind Prince Harry’s other favourite club, Mayfair’s Mahiki, where the likes of Margot Robbie, Benedict Cumberbatch, James Corden, Scarlett Johansson and Paris Hilton drank fruity rum cocktails out of vessels shaped like pirate galleons, and danced like no one was watching to Chic and Abba in the Polynesian-styled basement. Amanda Seyfried once did a stint behind the bar.
“All those people came because our policy was to be the opposite of a celebrity magnet,” says Adam. “We weren’t trying to be cool — the interior was Polynesian and kitsch. The DJ’s playlist was like something you’d get at a wedding or house party. We never took ourselves very seriously and didn’t really do the whole VIP thing. It was democratic and good fun. That’s why all those celebrities liked it.”
How did he cope with Harry and his entourage? “I met Harry and William at Tom Parker Bowles’s wedding,” says Adam, who was Guy Ritchie’s best man at the director’s marriage to Madonna in 2000. “Harry liked Mahiki because once he was inside he got treated like everyone else and felt free to be silly.” To make sure the heir and the Spare weren’t hassled by photographers outside the Dover Street basement, Adam recalls, the young royals and their posse would often come and go via the staff entrance wearing balaclavas, guerilla-style. After a 16-year run, tiki Mahiki closed in 2021, Adam now invested in a Highlands hotel and a Scotch whisky brand. “I’ve been out of clubs for years now,” says Adam. “And I have missed it so much. I’m delighted to be back. I love King’s Road and I love this business.
”Handsome slashie Burton — nightclub entrepreneur/scenester/fashion designer/artist — worked with Adam on other projects (Whisky Mist, The Punch Bowl and Tonteria) and now brings his creative direction and transatlantic connectivity to Chelsea. Inspired by both Gaudi and Salvador Dali, Burton designed The Rex Rooms interior (Rex = King. King’s Road, geddit?) as a woozy, surrealist trip of a basement, all melting mirror frames, strange spider webs and curvilinear, hand-carved wooden walls.
With a background as a fashion designer — Burton’s MJB label is worn by The Rolling Stones, Machine Gun Kelly, Tom Hardy, Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid — he has dressed up waiters in Vivienne Westwood/Seditionaries style punk outfits, while cocktail waitresses/dancers will wear other-worldly get-ups (think Avatar’s Na’vi people) created by Lady Gaga’s art directors. The Rex Rooms will be two subterranean spaces — a speakeasy lounge and a more exclusive “King’s 1942 Room. No phones or selfies allowed in the King’s Room,” says Burton who once confiscated smartphones from two overwrought Chelsea girls who tried to take snaps of Prince Harry on the way to a banquette.
A specialist in A-list discretion, back in 2009 Burton hosted Rihanna’s birthday party and once organised a lad’s night out at The Punch Bowl pub for Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jude Law and Guy Ritchie. He also ran the private room at Whisky Mist, where guests included Jay-Z and Beyoncé. In Elon Musk’s recent biography by Walter Isaacson, it is recorded that Musk first met British actress Talulah Riley in Whisky Mist in 2008 and were married two years later — Burton choreographing the tech-monster/It girl meet-cute to diplomatic and bespoke perfection. “I’ve designed the King’s Room so that people can adjust the lighting to suit their mood.” There will be an eclectic/cross-generational music policy and no big-name DJs. “A Bluetooth system lets guests even play their own music, just like they do at a house party,” says Burton.
Any fruity rum cocktails poured into pirate Toby jugs? “The new generation is far more health-conscious and in tune with nature,” says Burton. “So Rex Rooms drinks will combine artistry and wellness and incorporate elements like (legal) liquid mushroom oils.” An Enchanted Shrooms cocktail (“shot of Don Julio 1942 with lion’s mane extract, honey and pineapple”) will be served in a hand-carved mushroom sculpture. While another signature sharer — called the PDA (“Perrier-Jouët rosé champagne, cassis, framboise and Cîroc vodka”) — takes its inspiration from Salvador Dali and is mixed in a vessel shaped like the artists’ famous “lips” sofa. One for the famously full-bouched (and Chelsea local) Mick Jagger, perhaps?
This thing for mixing up freaky, fashionised interiors with psychedelic tinctures, far-out furnishings and a rave music soundtrack, seems to hark back to a Chelsea of idyll of the swinging 1960s — a hedonistic, fast and flirty notion that delights the new, one-five-slumming owners. “I can tell you that there were 18 other applications for the 151 address, all different ideas. But the people at Cadogan Estates, who are intent on bringing the magic back to Chelsea, were adamant that the property should stay as a nightclub,” says Adam, sounding like Austin Powers. “King’s Road is back, baby!”
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