Just Getting On With It

FOR the last few days I’ve been in London on assignment, staying at the Portobello Hotel, where — my friend Tim Blanks tells me — he used to visit Nico in the ’70s. “It may have been the first boutique hotel in London,” he said, recalling that the front-desk man in the Nico era wore a cropped Vivienne Westwood top with feather trim.

To me, the Portobello, in Notting Hill, is actually the un-boutique hotel. It doesn’t charge for Wi-Fi, and you can get porridge any time you want it. Somebody in the management thought to add a small carton of milk to the familiar bottles in the mini bar (with a cereal bowl in the cupboard). In other words, the hotel gives you exactly what you need, and doesn’t try to be stylish or hip. It just is.

This is the first time I’ve stayed for a length of time in Notting Hill. I made one dash early in the week to the West End to meet Hussein Chalayan for lunch at J. Sheekey, which was packed, as many restaurants in this end of town are.

This morning I’m going to the National Gallery to see the Leonardo da Vinci show. But otherwise I’ve stayed around Notting Hill, and one tends to notice things: the variety of small retail businesses that cater to the neighborhood (and people who come to the Portobello Market), the many organic and fair-trade food purveyors, the amount of Christmas stuff (greens, cards, toys) that is generally nicer and less expensive than what you find in New York.