At Notting Hill’s Casa Cruz, I thought a bulldoggish doorman would be guarding the entrance. Judging by the waiter’s eyes, blazing with alarm as I shambled in, so did he. “Do you…” he asked, in that voice usually reserved for the bewildered elderly, “have a booking?”
I understood: most people who turn up here don’t arrive looking like a crumpled fiver. Linen and the rain, not a good mix. Casa Cruz is for sleek sorts: some stylish, some chi chi. It’s for women who’d have Dua Lipa reaching for the Ozempic, men who party in their Goldman Sachs starter-pack suits. It is also for the A-list. This place isn’t just popular with celebrities, it’s infested with them. Last week, Taylor Swift swung by with quite the gang: Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, Andrew Scott, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, two Haim sisters, Chrissie Hynde and Lena Dunham. A diverse crew, in one sense. Not in the other.
