How to live like James Bond
As Dominic Cooper steps into the shoes of 007 creator Ian Fleming, here's how to spend a (very expensive) day in the life of the suave superspy
Lunch at Scott’s
Bond often lunches at seafood restaurant Scott’s, enjoying dressed crab and drinking Black Velvet (a blend of Guinness and champagne). “He always takes the corner table,” Fleming once explained. “It’s so he can watch the pretty girls walking past.”
Scott’s: 20 Mount Street, London W1K 2HE
Gamble at Crockfords
After a long day thwarting conspiracies, according to Moonraker, 007 loved nothing more than a game of cards
at Crockfords. Housed in a Grade I-listed mansion, the Mayfair club is known for attracting diplomats, aristocrats and royalty to its casino tables.
Crockfords: 30 Curzon Street, London W1J 7TN
Swirl a martini
It was during one of Ian Fleming’s many visits to Dukes Hotel’s dimly lit bar that he coined Bond’s phrase “shaken, not stirred”. If cocktail connoisseurs are to be believed, a Dukes martini is the best in the world.
DUKES, 35 St James’s Place, London SW1A 1NY
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Hang out at MI6
With its Babylonian-inspired architecture, Vauxhall Cross — the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, HQ — is an imposing building on the south bank of the Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. Although secure against electronic eavesdropping and bombs, it succumbs to dramatic licence in the opening sequence of The World Is Not Enough when a blast rips through its walls.
SIS: 85 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP
Head for the Highlands
Its London headquarters in ruins, MI6 relocates to its Scottish base, a beautiful castle situated at the meeting point of three lochs. Built in the mid-13th century, Eilean Donan was partially destroyed by Hanoverian cannon fire during the Jacobite uprising of 1719. It has since been restored.
Eilean Donan Castle: Near Dornie, Ross-shire
Visit his Tailor
Bespoke tailor Anthony Sinclair dressed Sean Connery in the early Bond films, pioneering the Conduit Cut, an elegant shape named after Sinclair’s premises in Mayfair’s Conduit Street. It is said Terence Young, director of 1962’s Dr No, insisted Connery sleep in it during filming to ensure he looked suave and relaxed on screen.
Anthony Sinclair: 34 Montagu Square, London W1H 2LJ
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Golf with Goldfinger
The 300-acre Stoke Park Hotel and Country Club first appears in Goldfinger (1964) as the scene of Bond’s golfing duel with the film’s eponymous villain. In Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), the Georgian mansion ballroom doubles as the interior of Bond’s Hamburg hotel.
Stoke Park: Park road, Stoke Poges SL2 4PG
Fleming episode one available on youtube.com/SkyFirstEpisodes from 22 February
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