I have just been proposed to in a somewhat slatternly tiki bar in Mayfair. Not just any tiki bar, but Trader Vic’s, the Polynesian-themed restaurant and lounge underneath the London Hilton on Park Lane. Approaching its 60th anniversary, the bar has seen better days, but for historical purposes my partner of 12 years decided that this dimly lit den would be the location for the proposal of a lifetime. Then wouldn’t you know it – just two weeks later I discover that this cavern of delight where I spent many birthdays is being evicted and will close on 31 December.
Trader Vic’s began in the 1950s, when Victor Jules Bergeron Jr. (Trader Vic himself) teamed up with Western Hotels in the US to turn his already popular tropical-themed bar and restaurant into a franchise. Needing more capital to expand, he partnered with Hilton Hotels, opening the first venue to carry the Trader Vic’s name in California’s Beverly Hilton in 1955. Chicago soon followed, and within a few years the Trader Vic’s establishments were earning Conrad Hilton’s hotel chain more than $5 million a year.
In 1963 Trader Vic’s arrived in a swinging London, and my parents were regulars. My father, the film director and Soho habitué Ken Hughes, often held huge dinners there. I have photos of my parents with friends such as Bob Monkhouse (the best man at their wedding) in huge rattan peacock chairs drinking mai tais (which Bergeron invented) out of ceramic coconuts. The exotic cuisine such as the famous ‘Cosmo Tidbits’ and ‘Crab Rangoon’ was something post-war London had not yet encountered. It was an era of scandal and sophistication; the first James Bond film Dr No was released, the Profumo affair was rocking London society and the Beatles had just recorded their first album at Abbey Road. If you weren’t sipping frothy coffees in Frith Street or dining at the White Elephant on the river, you were at Trader Vic’s.
On 31 October 1970 my heavily pregnant mother celebrated her birthday there with a large group of friends. That was the night her waters broke. She exclaimed she ‘couldn’t possibly go through with it’ and was swiftly escorted to the Lindo Wing at St Mary’s where I was born under the influence of far too many Samoan Fog Cutters. I remember once seeing a hilarious interview with Billy Connolly on Parkinson where he described his experience at Trader Vic’s of having a Zombie and getting ‘drunk from the bottom up’. Such is the danger of these delicious cocktails laden with rum, served in novelty vessels.
The popularity of Trader Vic’s remained throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and it became a family tradition to celebrate our birthdays there. Everything about the bar was glamorous, particularly the grand walk down a curved zebra-carpeted staircase which led you to a labyrinth of Polynesian seduction. Dark corners were for illicit lovers to share a Rum Giggle underneath the watchful eye of Moai statues. The ambience was like no other, the exotic decor of suspended blowfish, orange lanterns and fishing nets and low-level Hawaiian music all adding to this romantic kitsch. Much of the original decor is by Tahitian Artist Halo Leon whose hand carved poles and figures were shipped to London and installed when the bar opened in 1963.
When I was little (and only allowed to drink virgin piña coladas) I would be given a toy Menehune (mythical creatures who live in the Hawaiian caves) and plied with glacé cherries from the grown-ups’ cocktails. I desperately wanted to be a Trader Vic’s waitress: they were so glamorous, dressed in floor-length figure-hugging floral gowns and with coiffured hair.
There’s no such attire nowadays. Trader Vic’s has certainly seen better days and is in need of a loving and careful revamp, but it has a loyal following of nostalgic fans who are deservedly angry that their beloved tiki bar is being evicted from its home. A Change.org petition has reached 6,500 signatures and JCB boss Mark Bamford has joined the fight, telling the Daily Mail he finds the decision to close ‘totally crass’ and ‘short sighted’.
Scroll through the @SaveTraderVicsldn Instagram account and you’ll find accusations that the London Hilton has neglected its tenant – while in the past two years it has posted online 58 times promoting its restaurants and bars, only two of those posts were about Trader Vic’s. Rhett Rosen, CEO of Trader Vic’s, has said in a statement that the eviction is because the Hilton has ‘decided to renovate’. The gloves are off and pineapple chunks are flying.
Hotel bars come and go but Trader Vic’s has been a fixture in London for almost 60 years. It deserves a fighting chance because Beverly Hills is too far to go to get drunk from the bottom upwards.
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