Mr Fogg’s Botanical Tavern and Treehouse – Fitzrovia

A London catch up

It was so lovely to meet up with Karen Bird for an evening in London last night. It hardly felt like five minutes since we’d last seen each other—though in truth it was many moons ago.

Emma and I travelled up from South London, by train and tube and met up with Karen at Mr Fogg’s Botanical Tavern, where we spent a long and chatty evening.  

Introducing Karen to Emma for the first time was entertaining, mainly because I could hardly get a word in edgeways 😆😆😆. They were chit chatting away like they’d known each other for donkeys’ years…Whose ‘old friend’ was this meant to be again?

The weather was glorious: blue skies and comfortable temperatures. We started off sitting outside before retreating indoors to our table.

Dinner was reasonably priced and perfectly adequate, but the real highlight came at bill-paying time. Only the drinks had been charged. I pointed this out, asked the staff to double-check the bill (three times!), but they insisted the food had already been paid for. Eventually I gave up protesting, settled the tab, and returned to the table grinning. Perhaps we’d been visited by a mysterious random bill payer!

Ho hum, I did try, and harder than most, I suspect!

We carried on upstairs to the not-so-secret cocktail lounge, a “treehouse” themed bar which is delightfully kooky. So, naturally, the money saved on dinner was swiftly reinvested in cocktails. A win-win, I’d say.

Surprise Guests

As luck would have it, we even had fleeting visits from two family members: Hannah, one of Emma’s triplets, and my youngest daughter, Sarah.

Hannah was in London for work, and by coincidence was just seven minutes away in another pub, so she joined us for a quick glass before heading off with friends. Moments later Sarah, also on a nearby work conference, happened to be walking past Mr Fogg’s on her way to an evening event. Cue the shortest of introductions. The beauty of WhatsApp!

Friendship since 1971

Click here or below for a link to a page about how Karen and I met.