‘It’s all hugely convivial, like a time before any of the Bad Things happened’
Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell is not a private members’ club, but it has the feel of some of the best ones from the 1980s and 1990s, back when such places were secretive and insalubrious boltholes. Pop in on a Thursday for lunch, then come out blinking into the sunlight on Friday. What happened behind those generally unmarked doors stayed inside – there were no cameras or phones in those days, remember.
Over the past decade, however, almost all of these boozy, time-fritting members’ clubs with their steeply priced exclusivity have transformed into rather sterile, glorified communal spaces that are now filled with people shouting through Zoom calls, filming Instagram content or engaging in other keenly industrious stuff. The last time I went anywhere that felt like Sessions Arts Club, the only person shouting was Keith Allen, possibly at Damien Hirst. The place is, delightfully, virtually unfindable, too, hiding in plain sight up a side street, its red door ajar and leading into an enormous, imposing, rather fabulous one-time courthouse that is both prettily restored and, in places, shabby-chicly untouched, with stripped-back plaster, sweeping staircases, old service lifts, humongous house plants, velvet curtains and faded armchairs. It’s decadent, a bit sexy and definitely not of its time.