Westminster is often described as a village, and like most villages it has a clutch of good pubs and a decent curry house down the road. But beyond that the area isn’t overly blessed with places to eat, drink and be merry. There’s little in the way of bars (except in hotels and the Palace of Westminster itself), let alone nightclubs. The closest of those is in Embankment – Players and Heaven are favourites (though such is the paucity of choice that Michael Gove clearly felt the need to go all the way to Ibiza to bust his moves).
As for restaurants, the slim choice means there is a small group of favoured haunts, and you can be confident that there’ll be a table of political friends (or rivals) a mere onion bhaji’s throw away. Some MPs have always sought to escape Westminster to plot, heading for the likes of The Gay Hussar (at least until 2018), Rules, Kennington Tandoori (one of life’s great mysteries) or – in the case of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – the infamous Granita in Islington.
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