Ten years after it first opened, and Chiltern Firehouse remains the hottest place to be seen in Marylebone: meet the man behind the hotel

One of my favourite stories about André Balazs – and there are a few – is from Chateau Marmont, his hotel in Los Angeles: when state law clamped down on guests smoking on the outside terrace of his French-style café-restaurant, Balazs was so enraged he strode directly into the garden and lit up a cigarette in defiance. ‘And the funny thing is,’ says a member of staff, ‘he’s not even a smoker.’

What he is, is a libertine. A sybarite. A…