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.
But for Casa this was business as usual, same old, same old. This year, George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Stormzy have also been in. Leo too. Not at once, granted, and not last Thursday, when the crowd was mostly a young, glittering set, divvied into two camps: one celebrating a birthday, the other discussing their heartfelt desires to do something meaningful with lives, like hosting each other’s art exhibitions.
What they’re getting is… moody lighting and an awful lot of copper? There’s a sheet of it over the front door, and strips of it run around the ground floor and upstairs bar. It catches the light, so the whole place looks like it’s had a spray tan. Though not the loos, which are exactly like those on a yacht, complete with push-button locks and room for two.
OK, OK. There’s more to it than that. There’s a menu for a South American-inspired supper, or the para picar (“for snacking”) menu, just the thing with drinks — scallops drenched in chilli and lemon juice, Basque sausages for dipping in romesco and mustard, that sort of thing. All very good.
There’s a massive great wine wall with kingpin pricing, but cocktails and mocktails too. They clearly know what they’re doing: a Vesper with an orange twist hit like a pin hammer between the eyebrows, while a Hemingway Daiquiri came note perfect, tart, full of dry cherry, heavy on the rum. One of their own, an Aidan (mezcal, crème de mûre, Campari, Prosecco), was like a smoky Negroni Sbagliato with a blackberry shot, boozy but expertly balanced. Soon, keen girls were tugging acquiescing boys up to dance.
The next move at Casa is always Champagne. This is what you come for: glamour, a good time, to say you’re in the same seat a princess took last week, and it not be a stretch. Casa is for having fun and feeling like you’re in rarefied air. Just be sure to dress the part.
