Michelin-star restaurant boss is found guilty of spiking woman’s spicy margarita with date-rape drug at Mayfair club

A Michelin-starred restaurant boss has been found guilty of spiking a woman’s drink with a date rape drug at his private members’ club in a bid to influence her for sex.

Vikas Nath, 63, used a straw to put gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) into the woman’s spicy margarita as she sat at the rooftop garden bar at Annabel’s in Mayfair, central London, on January 15, 2024.

CCTV released by the Crown Prosecution Service shows Nath brazenly dabbling in drink within yards of colleagues and customers enjoying their evenings at the £3,750-a-year club in Berkeley Square.

The restaurateur, who has two Michelin-starred venues in his portfolio in the UK and Spain, admitted adding additives to the drink but said it was to make her ‘less anxious’ rather than to have sex with her.

But on Friday Nath was found guilty by a jury of attempting to administer and possess with intent a Class B drug.

His trial at Southwark Crown Court heard how he became frustrated with the woman’s apparent reluctance to have sex with him before the anchor incident and took GBL to the club in a vanilla extract bottle.

Nath’s home in Knightsbridge contained two bottles of liquid medication and a motion sensor-activated hidden camera pointed at his bed.

Prosecutors said the man’s plan was to drug the woman and take her back to his home for sex when she became ‘overpowered or dazed’.

Nath photographed at Southwark Crown Court in London

This is the moment Michelin-starred restaurant mogul Vikas Nath added an ingredient hidden in a bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract to a woman’s spicy margarita.

But eagle-eyed Annabel’s staff noticed Nath using a straw to put GBL in the margarita and intervened to stop the woman from drinking it.

The businessman looked down at the ground and was seen shaking his head in the dock as the jury delivered its verdict.

As the judge remanded him in custody pending sentencing at a later date, he wiped away his tears and was heard saying: ‘This is nonsense***.

Nath was forced to admit to spiking the woman’s drink after he was caught red-handed by Annabel’s staff and recorded on the exclusive members’ club’s CCTV.

The court heard Nath threw the bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract into the toilet cistern after realizing he was “getting noisy” but was later rescued by police.

Bar staff also managed to remove the spiked drink from the table so it could later be tested by police forensic experts.

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC praised the swift actions of Annabel’s team, who spotted Nath’s ‘rather strange actions’ on January 15, 2024.

‘(They) watched Mr Nath put a straw in his drink and put his finger in the top of the glass,’ he said.

Nath had a small bottle in his hand and used the straw to ‘suck up the liquid’ before pouring the contents into the woman’s drink.

The woman left the table and was stopped by staff and told what had happened before returning to Nath.

He told the hearing Nath felt ‘betrayed’ but initially defended him when staff warned him they believed his drink had been spiked.

‘I remember vividly defending Mr. Nath, saying, ‘There’s no way he could do this,'” he said.

Image: Annabel’s private members club in Mayfair, central London

‘I remember sending him a text saying, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.’ Because I felt like it was my fault.

‘I didn’t want him to get in trouble, I didn’t believe it.’

The court heard the pair had been in contact before the Annabel incident, including lunch meetings at the five-star hotel in Benares and Beaverbrook Town House.

She also recalled Nath taking her to a burlesque show at Cirque Le Soir and the court was shown messages in which Nath warned the woman that the drinks had been spiked.

“I don’t think I’ll be drinking today,” she texted Nath after an evening out.

He replied: ‘I think you should drink, but be careful of the people around you. ‘My biggest concern last night was someone spiking your drink.’

After being arrested at the club, Nath admitted spiking the woman’s drink without her consent, but insisted he was trying to “comfort” her rather than pressure her into sex.

He claimed to have taken GBL to clean the rims of a high-powered car on the advice of a friend, and claimed that he himself had drank some of the liquid in the past to relax.

He also claimed he ‘hugged and kissed’ the woman, but she denied this and told the court their relationship was not sexual.

In texts shown to the jury, Nath described the woman to a friend as “utterly awful”, said of their friendship: “I want to make love, not hold hands” and suggested she should “play a long game”.

On the day of the spike he wrote: ‘I’m at Annabel’s house. This is probably our last evening with him. ‘He doesn’t bite.’

His friend then replied: ‘I hope it’s time for action.’

In the police interview, Nath also admitted to past incidents of secretly having sex at his home using a motion sensor-activated camera installed in his bedroom.

Mr Clark told jurors the restaurateur “wanted to have sex at his home, where there was a camera and could record it” and said Nath was “impatient as no progress was being made”.

In the witness box, Nath broke down in tears as he admitted that spiking the drink was ‘wrong’.

“I regret it very much,” he said, but maintained that he wasn’t thinking about sex at the time.

He said GBL potentiated the effects of alcohol and that he himself had taken the drug before going to Annabel.

He also argued that he was not aware that the substance was an illegal drug.

Following the guilty verdicts, Timothy Greaves of the CPS said: ‘Vikas Nath deliberately spiked a woman’s drink without her knowledge in order to incapacitate her and thus sexually assault her.

‘Luckily, bar staff witnessed what he was doing and were able to alert the victim to the change in his drink before calling the police.

‘Despite his attempts to conceal the evidence and deny his intentions, we worked closely with the Metropolitan Police to build a strong case to present at trial and ultimately the jury found him guilty.

‘Spiking is an incredibly serious crime that leaves victims traumatized and terrified.

‘While these crimes often go undetected, the CPS is clear that offenders like Nath will face the full extent of the law so we can deliver the justice victims deserve.’

The next hearing in Nath’s case is scheduled for February 16.