Vikas Nath, an Indian-origin businessman and owner of two Michelin-starred restaurants, admitted to spiking a woman’s drink in a nightclub two years ago. The incident occurred on 15 January 2024 at the Post Mayfair club Annabel’s when an employee caught Vikas Nath adding a substance – an “rape drug” also known as gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) – to a woman’s margarita.
While Vikas Nath admitted that he spiked the woman’s drink, he denied the allegation that he was supposed to have sex with her. He said he drank the drink to help the woman “relax”.
According to Hindustan Times, Vikas Nath is the director of the Michelin-starred restaurant Benares in Mayfair. He owns a number of high-end restaurants in the UK and also in Spain.
The woman told the court that she had met Vikas Nath about five to six times before the incident. She said Vikas Nath seemed genuinely concerned about her health and invited her for a drink.
She also remembered that Nath had warned her earlier about drinking too much. Calling him “generous” and someone who always paid for their lunches, the woman said: “He made a point of taking care of me and it was nice. I never thought he’d make a physical move on me, so I felt safe with him.”
On the day of the incident, staff at Annabel’s saw “rather strange actions” by Vikas Nath, who was alone at the table at the time.
Staff watched as Nath used a straw to collect liquid from the bottle he was trying to hide and then poured it into the woman’s drink. They replaced her cocktail after alerting senior managers before the matter was reported to the police.
Staff also advised the woman that her drink had been spiked.
Prosecutor Tim Clark said: “By the time the police arrived, Mr Nath clearly found himself shaken. He tried to hide the evidence of what he had done, went to the toilet and threw the small bottle into the cistern and when the police found it, it was floating,” the BBC reported.
In a police interview after the incident in January 2024, Vikas Nath said he had been given gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) as a cleaning fluid for a high-performance car and had been told by a friend that he could also drink it with alcohol as a “relaxant”.
He told police he did not realize it was illegal for him to be in possession of GBL, a Class B controlled substance designated as a date-rape drug because of its extreme effects when consumed.
Shocked after being told what Vikas Nath was caught doing, the woman even tried to defend him.
“I remember vividly defending Mr Nath and saying ‘There’s no way he could do this’. I remember texting him saying ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on’. Because I felt it was my fault. I didn’t want him to get in trouble, I didn’t believe it,” she said.
