How Mayfair became an Emirate

When I want to see what piles of money look like, I walk round Berkeley Square. First there are the car showrooms — Ferrari, Bentley, Porsche — ready to absorb sudden windfalls. Then there are the restaurants, places with names like Sexy Fish and Nobu, with Land Rovers idling for the disgorging diners. There’s also Phillips, the auction house, where an Andy Warhol painting of Mao recently went for £1.6 million. But more than these varied examples of conspicuous consumption are the Mayfair buildings themselves. Many are owned by offshore companies linked to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Abu Dhabi. Just around the corner is the Saudi embassy, an 18th-century pile worth over £100 million. This, then, is Middle Eastern London, part of an