High class companions across Mayfair, W1K and W1J, from Brook Street to Piccadilly

The district owes its name to a fortnight of spring revelry, the May Fair, held on open ground around what is now Shepherd Market until the neighbours had it shut down in the eighteenth century for being rather too lively. The fields became the Grosvenor and Berkeley estates, and the tone was set for good: immaculate on the surface, with a streak of mischief that was never quite built over.

Today the map reads like a style supplement. Savile Row keeps its cutting rooms at pavement level, so you can watch a jacket take shape through the glass. Cork Street and Dover Street hang their galleries shoulder to shoulder, Albemarle Street runs past the Royal Institution, and Curzon Street keeps a cinema and a bookseller of real renown. Shepherd Market's lanes, meanwhile, are so narrow that even a weeknight there feels faintly clandestine.

What makes Mayfair so easy for an evening is how closely everything sits. A table on Mount Street, a lobby on Brook Street and a nightcap on Piccadilly are all within fifteen minutes on foot, so once your companion has arrived the car can usually be forgotten.

Open the desk's messages on any Thursday and W1 speaks in three voices: hotel guests writing between meetings or straight after check in, collectors in town for the big sales, and residents of mews houses and mansion flats who would rather host supper at home. What they share is a taste for polish without production. They want a companion who can walk into the Connaught Bar as though she had always been expected, and who is just as content when the plan changes to room service and an old film.

A word on how we print hotel names: as scenery. Claridge's and its neighbours appear on this page because guests stay in them, and for no other reason, since Mayfair Babes has no dealings with any of them. Reception is never told who is expected, and your companion is simply someone meeting you for the evening.

Claridge's, W1K 4HR, on Brook Street, is the Art Deco landmark, with a chequerboard marble lobby and a glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly glowing over the Foyer. The Connaught, W1K 2AL, sits where Carlos Place meets Mount Street, with its celebrated bar and a still pool by the door that breathes out a veil of mist every so often. Brown's Hotel, W1S 4BP, on Albemarle Street, feels like a very good club: panelled, hushed and lined with books.

Along the park, The Dorchester, W1K 1QA, holds the long, gilded Promenade and some of the best tables in the district, while 45 Park Lane, W1K 1PN, its smaller sibling next door, is sleek, modern and happily discreet. On the southern edge, The Ritz, W1J 9BR, overlooks Green Park from its corner of Piccadilly.

If you are meeting downstairs, the Tube does the work. Allow about 4 minutes on foot from Green Park, where Victoria, Piccadilly and Jubilee trains all stop, to the heart of the district. From the Elizabeth, Central and Jubilee platforms at Bond Street it is roughly 5 minutes to Claridge's, and the Piccadilly line's stop at Hyde Park Corner sits around 7 minutes from the hotels that face the park.

She will arrive by car rather than by train, and since W1K and W1J sit in the middle of Zone 1, the journey is already inside the rate. Timing is the easy part here: Angelika, Luna and Samanta all live in W1, so on a free evening the wait after Bella confirms is usually well under an hour, and a booking for another day simply runs to the clock you set.

Verification is a single exchange. Bella confirms whose name the reservation carries and the room it points to, or the street and door of a private address, and never raises it again. Her fee changes hands in person, the moment she walks in, which keeps every hotel bill spotless.

6pm, Albemarle Street. A guest at Brown's Hotel sends Bella a short brief: dinner for two at nine, somewhere with atmosphere, time afterwards to talk. Of the two names offered he picks Samanta, who has an instinct for where to sit in any room.

8.55pm, the lobby. Black tuxedo jacket, one diamond stud, a handshake and a smile. They walk ten minutes to Murano on Queen Street, past the lit windows around Berkeley Square, and settle into a long, easy dinner built for sharing. Somewhere between courses the talk drifts from a recital at Wigmore Hall to the finest hotel door handles in London, a subject on which she holds firm views.

11.30pm, Shepherd Market. The pub crowds have thinned and the lamplit lanes are almost silent, the long way back chosen on purpose. A nightcap in the hotel bar, one more story, and at one o'clock she says goodnight. Her time for the evening: four hours, £1,300, from the first handshake to the last story.

Angelika is the athlete of the three, jet haired at 172 cm, with a weakness for small jazz rooms and new painting. Luna wears red with total conviction and chooses wine like someone who has read the label twice. Samanta, tall and composed at 174 cm, is the one to ask for when music is part of the plan.

Close behind them come Liana and Rosa, a few minutes north in Marylebone, the first calm and bookish, the second curly haired, warm and devoted to soul records. From Knightsbridge, just along the park, Bianka brings a sommelier's curiosity and Margo a velvet calm. Lea, petite and auburn, crosses from Belgravia in minutes and has opinions about every lampshade on the way. The rest of the roster will happily come to W1 as well; the names above just have the shortest drive.

Mayfair is big enough to hold neighbourhoods of its own, and several have their own page in this issue. Mount Street is the village at its western heart, all terracotta, oysters and a hidden garden. The Park Lane hotels line the edge facing Hyde Park, Grosvenor Square is the grand green room of the north side, and Bond Street runs straight through the middle with its windows lit until late. Berkeley Square, St James's and Marylebone are all part of the beat too, priced exactly as here.