At London Hotel the Old Is Stunningly In Again

It was one of those quintessential moments that fix a time and place forever in the mind.

Just before twilight at the Ritz’s Sunday afternoon tea dance the society jazz band struck up “Puttin’ On the Ritz,” and the well-dressed Londoners, some of them old enough to remember the Blitz, some of them born after the Beatles came to fame, stepped out onto the floor while a Tatler photographer discreetly snapped pictures of London’s latest proof that everything old is new again.

Outside, in the chill of a gray afternoon, the lights of the city were beginning to illuminate. Pedestrians who hurried along Piccadilly wore gloves and mufflers, and a pudgy woman feeding pigeons in Green Park was bundled up in a balding fur coat the shade of a strawberry roan.

But inside, the restored Ritz dining room glowed like Versailles, the chandeliers festooned with gilded swags, and garlands of roses twinkled in duplicate in a mirrored wall. Above, on the oval painted ceiling, a sort of Fragonard pastel garden with puffy little clouds and pink roses twining on garden walls echoed the whipped-cream fantasies being served on silver trays by waiters in black tails.

The scene is grand, almost preposterous.

Male patrons of the Palm Court’s regular afternoon tea--a relatively modest 8.50 ($14 U.S.); available by reservation only--are required to be attired in jacket and tie, and casually clad people wandering through are politely but firmly dissuaded from taking flash photographs of each other in the Palm Court.

Even actress Farrah Fawcett, in residence at the Ritz while filming the biography of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, attracted less notice than the fashionable tea dance patrons in flirtatious black cocktail hats with veils and narrow feathers.

Hutton spent a great deal of time at the Ritz. Noel Coward watched the heiress one day in the dining room waving her newly manicured fingertips in front of a dish of quails, and dashed off lyrics for “Children of the Ritz,” which ends, “We know just how we want our quails done, and then we go and have our nails done.”

On the table against the pink linen cloth are slender, crustless sandwiches of cucumber, egg salad, salmon and pate, sprinkled with cress. A choice of India or China tea is served in a shiny and very heavy silver pot, followed by a procession of little treats--hot buttered and toasted English muffins, fat scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream, the famous Ritz strawberry tarts, the chef’s special almond slice with marzipan filling, and glazed kiwi-and-grape pastries.

Solemn Dedication

To the strains of “A Foggy Day in London Town,” a pale, languid blonde danced with detached precision and the polish of an Arthur Murray graduate, her eyes turned up, her face immobile with an utterly bored expression, while her escort, who looked like an earnest young architect in his wire-rimmed glasses, tattersall shirt and knit tie, propelled her around the floor with solemn dedication.

The word was already out that the Yanks were coming back. Unlike last year, when terrorism kept the big groups away, 1987 looks promising in spite of the puny dollar.

The charters are beginning to arrive; our flight from Los Angeles set down at Gatwick Airport about the same time as two wide-bodies, one from New York and the other from Dallas-Fort Worth, both of them chockablock with students and teachers, parents and tourists, who formed long, rambling lines at immigration stations and chattered eagerly about what they planned to do and see.

On Saturday afternoon three ebullient young American women were taking turns photographing each other with a smiling London bobby. Another woman, asking a Savile Row passer-by the way to “Burk-ley” Square, was gently told that “ Bark -ley” Square lay in that direction.

The famous foods emporium of Fortnum & Mason was mobbed with people buying tins of special blend teas, and Penhaligon’s tiny shop in the Burlington Arcade was fragrant with rose petals and essence of bluebells. “People still prefer the traditional scents and Victorian Blends,” a salesgirl said.

Burberry’s was busy with people buying $500 trench coats or $70 cashmere mufflers in the company’s distinctive beige plaid. On the entrance doors the hours of business operation were spelled out in Arabic, Japanese and English. A “Bespoke” (made-to-order) shirt from Turnbull & Asser, where Prince Charles has his shirts made, ranges from $96 in Oxford cloth to $200 and up in silk.

Sports Craze

The newest sports craze is carriage driving, a favorite of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Michael of Kent and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The sport bears some resemblance to handling a four-up team in American Western-style stagecoach driving, but the horses are much better groomed. Horses are matched and in best harness, grooms are in livery, and drivers in top hats and long coats.

The Duke of Edinburgh describes it as like being a swan. “On the surface it is all peace and serenity,” said Philip, “but down below you’re paddling like hell!”

Around the corner from the Ritz, tucked away in the narrow streets off St. James’s Place between Piccadilly and the St. James’s Palace, are three other small London hotels housed in renovated Victorian homes--all rambling, eccentric and charming.

Dukes Hotel, hidden in a cul-de-sac courtyard with gas lamps and window boxes bright with spring flowers, is a cozily discreet favorite almost jealously protected by its fans, who’d like to keep it a secret. A small, cream-colored dining room, little bar and formal drawing room serve the hotel’s 39 bedrooms and 14 suites, which range from $185 single to $336 for a suite. Furnishings are sedately luxurious but sophisticated, with extra amenities from bathrobes to hair dryers in the marble bathrooms.

The St. James Club, more overtly glamorous, is open only during the off-season to non-members, who may stay once without joining but only on the recommendation of a member. You might ask Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore, Michael Caine, Roger Moore or Christopher Plummer to put a word in for you. Last year’s guests included Tina Turner, Sheena Easton, Cher, Morgan Fairchild, Angela Lansbury and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Billiard Tables, Too

VCR, video library and mini-bars. A green-and-tartan game room with billiards table, a terrace room restaurant and chic little bar are among the hotel’s public rooms. Rates range from $200 for a studio to $475 for a one-bedroom suite.

The Stafford Hotel, “an English country hotel in the heart of London” as one of the staff describes it, was created from three houses belonging to lords and ladies-in-waiting to Queen Victoria (Buckingham Palace is nearby). Trafalgar House has extensively restored and redecorated the Stafford as well as the Ritz.

The top-floor rooms, where the servants’ quarters once were, are small but charming, with pastel chintz fabrics and delicate, flower-sprigged wallpaper. One single room in several shades of blue ($184) comes with its own bird song. It overlooks a roof garden belonging to Lady Chichester, widow of Sir Francis Chichester, the noted voyager; she still lunches every Sunday at the Stafford.

The cozy rooms, antique furniture and floral fabrics enchant people like actress Terri Garr, in residence while making a film in London. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward have been known to settle comfortably into the Stafford’s garden suite with its private rooftop terrace.

The only unhappy American of recent record was a 6-foot 4-inch Texan with high-heeled boots and personalized belt buckle whose travel agent back home adored the Stafford. But its charm escaped the Texan, who kept bumping into things, and he became convinced that he had been booked into “a dinky little second-rate hotel.”

Just as he was registering his complaints loudly to the management, Queen Elizabeth II arrived to attend a private luncheon in one of the hotel’s function rooms. A member of the management in morning coat hurried over and whispered frantically in his ear, “Please keep your voice down, sir, the queen is here.”

“The queen of what?” roared the Texan, glancing over his shoulder at the precise moment Her Majesty came into the hallway. For an instant, it is said, their eyes met, before Her Majesty went on to her luncheon and the chagrined Texan checked out.