A prominent restaurateur, known for his Michelin-star establishments, has been convicted of drugging a woman’s beverage at an upscale private members club, with the intent to incapacitate her for sexual purposes.

Sixty-three-year-old Vikas Nath was caught on camera using a straw to introduce gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) into a woman’s spicy margarita while they were seated at the rooftop garden bar of Annabel’s, a prestigious venue in Mayfair, central London, on January 15, 2024.

Footage from the Crown Prosecution Service reveals Nath’s audacious act of tampering with the drink amidst a bustling crowd of patrons and staff at the exclusive club, which boasts a membership fee of £3,750 annually, located in Berkeley Square.

Nath, who manages a collection of restaurants in the UK and Spain, including two with Michelin stars, admitted to spiking the drink. However, he claimed his intention was to ease the woman’s anxiety, not to engage in sexual activity with her.

On Friday, a jury found Nath guilty of the charges of attempting to administer a substance with intent and possessing a Class B drug.

During the trial at Southwark Crown Court, it was revealed that Nath became increasingly frustrated with the woman’s hesitance to engage in sexual relations with him prior to the incident. He had brought GBL to the club concealed in a vanilla extract bottle.

Nath had two bottles of the liquid drug at his Knightsbridge home, as well as a motion sensor-activated covert camera pointed at his bed. 

Prosecutors said his plan was to drug the woman and take her back to his home for sex when she had been ‘overpowered or stupefied’.

Vikas Nath, 63, has been found guilty of spiking a woman’s drink at an exclusive private members club in London

This is the moment Michelin-star restaurant boss Vikas Nath spikes a woman’s spicy margarita with a substance hidden in a Madagascan vanilla extract bottle

However, eagle-eyed Annabel’s staff spotted Nath using a straw to put GBL into the margarita, and intervened to prevent the woman from drinking it.

The businessman looked to the floor as the jury returned its verdicts, and could be seen shaking his head in the dock.

He wiped away tears as the judge remanded him in custody until sentencing at a later date, and could be heard saying ‘That’s bulls***’. 

Nath had been forced to admit 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 – after realising he had been ‘rumbled’ – threw the bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract into a toilet cistern but it was later recovered by police.

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

Prosecutor Tim Clark KC hailed the swift actions of Annabel’s staff after they noticed ‘rather strange actions’ by Nath on January 15 2024.

‘(They) watched Mr Nath put a straw into (her) drink, sticking his finger over the top’, he said.

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

The woman, who had left the table, was intercepted by staff before she returned to Nath and was told what was unfolding.

She felt ‘betrayed’ by Nath, she told the trial, but had initially defended him when staff warned that they believed her drink had been spiked.

‘I remember vividly defending Mr Nath, saying ‘There is no way he could do that”, she said.

Pictured: The exclusive Annabel’s private members club in Mayfair, central London 

‘I remember sending him a message saying ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening’. Because I felt it was my fault.

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

The court heard they had been in contact prior to the Annabel’s incident, including for lunch meetings at Benares and the Beaverbrook Town House five-star hotel.

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

‘I don’t think I will be drinking today,’ she had messaged Nath, after an evening out.

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

After he was arrested at the club, Nath admitted spiking the woman’s drink without her consent, but insisted he had been trying to ‘relax’ her rather than overpower her for sex.

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

He also claimed to have ‘hugged and kissed’ the woman, but she denied this and told the court their relationship had not been sexual.

In texts shown to the jury, Nath had described the woman to a friend as ’eminently f***able’, said of their friendship ‘I want to get laid, not hold hands’, and suggested he would need to ‘play the long game’.

On the day of the spiking incident, he wrote: ‘I’m at Annabel’s. This is probably the last evening with (her). She ain’t biting.’

The friend then replied: ‘Action time I hope.’

In police interview, Nath also admitted past incidents when he had covertly filmed sex at his home, using the motion sensor-activated camera set up in his bedroom.

Nath was ‘impatient with lack of progress’, said Mr Clark, telling jurors the restaurateur ‘wanted to have sex at his house where there was a camera and it could record it’.

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

‘I regret it very deeply’, he said, but argued he had not been thinking about sex at the time.

He said GBL heightened the effects of alcohol, and said he himself had ingested the drug before they went to Annabel’s.

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

After the guilty verdicts, Timothy Greaves, from the CPS, said: ‘Vikas Nath deliberately spiked a woman’s drink without her knowledge with the intention of incapacitating her so he could sexually assault her.

‘Thankfully, alert bar staff witnessed what he was doing and were able to warn the victim that her drink had been tampered with before calling the police.

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

‘Spiking is an incredibly serious offence that leaves victims traumatised and fearful.

‘While these offences can 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.’

A further hearing in Nath’s case has been scheduled for February 16.