Durrants and the old Marylebone manner, from the panelled bar to breakfast

A hotel older than the shops it stands behind

On George Street, a short walk from the foot of Marylebone High Street, a long Georgian frontage of brick and white window frames turns out to be a hotel. Durrants traces its history as a hotel to 1790, which makes it older than Regent Street, older than the department stores a few minutes south and considerably older than the idea of a boutique hotel. It stands just behind Hertford House, home of the Wallace Collection, on Manchester Square.

It has been extended, rewired and modernised many times, but never reinvented. That is the point of it. The panelled public rooms, the small bar, the dining room and the porters at the door all belong to a way of keeping a hotel that has almost disappeared from central London, and that regulars return to for exactly that reason.

What the house expects, and what it gives back

The old manner is mostly about volume. Voices stay low in the lounges, telephones are taken outside, and nobody is ever hurried out of an armchair. In return the staff remember you: the porter who carried your case on Monday greets you by name on Tuesday, the bar knows your drink by the second evening, and a request made once is not made again.

For an evening with a companion, that culture is an advantage rather than an obstacle. A house used to long-standing regulars, families and business travellers sees a guest arriving for dinner as the most ordinary event of its day. The manners that keep the lounge quiet are the same manners that keep every guest's business their own.

An evening that never leaves the block

Durrants sits in the middle of the most walkable square mile north of Oxford Street, and a whole evening can happen within five minutes of its door. A suggested order:

Wigmore Hall and Daunt Books, five minutes either way

Two of Marylebone's finest institutions are close enough to fold into any booking. Wigmore Hall on Wigmore Street opened in 1901 as Bechstein Hall and remains one of the great rooms for chamber music and song, intimate enough that every seat feels near the stage. A lunchtime or early evening concert followed by dinner is the most Marylebone evening there is.

Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street is an Edwardian shop built for a bookseller, with a long oak gallery under a skylight and its travel books shelved country by country, novels next to guidebooks. It is the ideal first half hour of an afternoon booking, and nobody leaves empty-handed. For dinner ideas along the same streets, see the Marylebone village note.

Arriving at a traditional front door

Traditional hotels still keep a porter by the entrance, and at Durrants the first person your companion meets is likely to be him. She arrives as your guest, gives your name if asked, and goes where you have arranged: the bar if you are meeting downstairs, the lifts if the evening begins in your room. If you are waiting in the bar, a word to the porter that you are expecting someone smooths the first minute completely.

Rooms away from the street side are quieter still, so ask for one when you reserve. The hotel is a short walk from both Bond Street and Baker Street stations, so your companion usually reaches the door within an hour of your confirmation.

November is its season

Panelled rooms were made for the dark months. From November, when the Christmas lights go up over Oxford Street and the pavements fill with shoppers, Durrants becomes the calmest address within a quarter of a mile: shut the front door and the crowds might be in another city. An afternoon at the shops, an early dinner, and an armchair by the bar while the rain streaks the windows is the old manner at its most persuasive.

Summer has its own merits, long light on Manchester Square and dinner outside on the High Street pavement, but winter is when the longer lengths make the most sense here. Book the December weekends early; they fill across all of W1.

Lengths that suit a slower house

A hotel like this is wasted on a rushed hour, although £250 for an hour in the bar is always available. Three hours for £700 covers the Wallace Collection, a drink and an early dinner. For a concert night, choose the dinner date: four hours, £900, with the recital and a table either side of it. For the complete old manner, including breakfast in the dining room, the overnight gives you ten hours for £1,800. The whole ladder sits on the rates page, and the booking page explains the one check we make.

Company in keeping with the house

Patricia is the obvious first choice: she chooses three paintings at the Wallace Collection, explains why, and then takes tea under the glass roof as if it were her own sitting room. Vanessa turns an hour in Daunt Books into a journey, a novel and a phrasebook for a country you have never visited. Karolina can tell you which seats at Wigmore Hall give the truest sound, and Liana, who lives in Marylebone, pairs a French novel with the quietest corner of the bar.

All four sit in our slender edit, and all four belong to the late twenties window. Name one of them, or describe the evening, and Clementine will match the rest.