‘It doesn’t take much to get me in a party mood’: Kelly Hoppen’s life in drinks

The interior designer, 64, tells Charlotte Vossen about vodka with P Diddy in LA, caipirinhas with Sienna Miller in Thailand and fizz with Marilyn Monroe in her dreams

My favourite drink as a kid was Appletiser, the fizzy apple juice. We moved from Cape Town to London when I was two but went back every Christmas until I was 15. It’s South African and only came to London many, many years later [in 1982], so it brought back loads of memories from when I was younger.

There’s always a bottle of Del Professore Aperitivo in the fridge, next to the milk. I discovered it at the River Cafe in London when I asked for an Aperol Spritz and they only had the Aperitivo. I love it in the summer, served over ice with prosecco and soda water. It’s not quite as sweet as Aperol, and has a paler, peachy colour.

My partner John Gardiner likes to open expensive bottles of wine at dinner. He always jokes that they’re wasted on me because I just like a cold Beaujolais from the fridge. I think you either understand wine and drink it, or you don’t. John is very close friends with Ronan Keating, and they enjoy drinking good wines together. They will really salivate over a special bottle, and I just don’t understand it.

The Quisi Bar at the Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri is one of the most beautiful settings to have a drink. The terrace of the bar overlooks one of the island’s busiest streets, so you can watch the people go by. I had one of their classics, a bellini, last time, and it was fantastic.

The interior designer, 64, tells Charlotte Vossen about vodka with P Diddy in LA, caipirinhas with Sienna Miller in Thailand and fizz with Marilyn Monroe in her dreams

P Diddy and I drank Cîroc at his house in LA. He was the face of the vodka brand at the time, and we were working together on designing his home. It was a good evening – I think we trialled all the different flavours, from lemon to melon.

You can’t go wrong with a classic martini with an olive at Claridge’s or The Connaught Bar [both in London’s Mayfair]. I like the shape of the glass. I like the way it looks. And I like the outcome. I don’t drink often so it doesn’t take much to get me in the mood to have a party. One drink is enough, but I’ll always want a second one and that’s my downfall.

I would have loved a night out with Marilyn Monroe. I collect photographs of her, and I think she was brilliant. We would have probably been drinking champagne, not that I like champagne – the bubbles don’t make me feel good – but I wouldn’t have cared.

I’m not too keen on fizzy drinks, unless I’m lying on a beach or by a pool. I’ll sometimes get a craving for a Diet Coke with ice and lemon when I’m really hot.

I can’t live without my Nespresso machine. I start each day with a glass of hot water and lemon, followed by an espresso – I use the ristretto capsules. Recently, I bought a portable espresso maker because I knew the hotel I was going to didn’t have one in the room. It looks like a bullet and it’s quite clever. You just put a capsule in, pour hot water over and press a button.

The Quisi Bar at the Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri is one of the most beautiful settings to have a drink, Kelly says

The most memorable bar I’ve designed is at the Lux Grand Baie, a hotel in Mauritius. It’s called the Beach Rouge and it has the most amazing backlit marble bar. I love it.

I think I’ll be remembered at my funeral with caipirinhas. I used to drink them often. I had one on my first date with John at Beach Blanket Babylon in West London – he was drinking a whisky and Coke. When my daughter Natasha and stepdaughters Sienna and Savannah [Miller] were younger we used to go to Thailand every year, and we always used to have caipirinhas on the beach. They’d love it because I’d get drunk.

Carton Water is available in a limited-edition Kelly Hoppen-design container (drinkwaterworks.com)

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