London's gentlemen's clubs hold out against identity politics

Gentlemen’s clubs are cheaper and shabbier in London than in New York but somehow grander. Reciprocal links mean that many British clubmen visit the Union Club, the Knickerbocker, or the Metropolitan. We marvel at their facilities, but we can’t help feeling slightly smug about their flashiness.

London’s clubs are homely and eccentric. There’s the Beefsteak, a single table in a discreet upper room off Leicester Square where it is said that, if you want to join, you have to be a relative of God and a damn close one at that. There’s Boodle’s, the model for James Bond’s Blades Club. There’s Buck’s, popular with Guards officers, where both Bucks Fizz and the sidecar were invented.