G & Tea at Mr Fogg’s Gin Parlour
“I bet the blokes who work here get laid a lot,” muttered Carla behind me, as we clambered up the very steep steps of Mr Fogg’s Gin Parlour.
cocktails
Kitsch and Kievs at Coin Laundry, Clerkenwell’s retro pub
Mike and I are currently in the process of buying a house in East London that was last decorated in the late 1970s. The bathroom fittings are pale peach, the floors are lined with the carpet equivalent of a terrible migraine, and the wallpaper is so bad, it’s almost good. Almost. The previous owner, an […]
Twin tipples at The Westbury’s Polo Bar
The Polo Bar at the Westbury Hotel has hit upon an amazing idea. When you order a cocktail, you get two glasses. One full-sized drink for you, and one matching tiddly tipple for your drinking companion.
Truffled tipples at City Social, Tower 42
The last time I visited Tower 42 was five years ago. Then, I rode the lift all the way to the top to Vertigo 42, a charmless champagne bar with not much more going for it than a spectacular view. These days, the view is even better, with the addition of such spectacular silhouettes as […]
Guilt-free gastronomy at Chai Wu, Harrods’ fancy pants Chinese restaurant
Carla had just got a new job, and we were in the mood to celebrate. By wonderful coincidence I had been invited that same weekend to road-test Chai Wu’s ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ menu, which although suitably celebratory also seemed a little alien, but only because I am a practising glutton whose natural ladylike demeanor does not […]
Visiting the Green Fairy in the Bonneville, East London’s spookiest pub
You don’t see much absinthe these days. Most bars have a dusty bottle or two on their topmost shelves, but orders tend to be limited to dirty pints by particularly cruel birthday party attendees. Unlike rum, pisco, whisky and especially gin, absinthe hasn’t enjoyed a fashionable revival in recent years, but that could be about […]
Meet the kings of gin at The East London Liquor Company
A few weeks ago I rode my bicycle down the towpath from Angel to the East London Liquor Co in Bow Wharf for a #ZomatoMeetup. It was a beautiful golden afternoon and the canal was not its usual swampy self but a sparkling green ribbon winding its way to Victoria Park and beyond. London’s towpaths are […]
The ultimate London bottomless brunch bucket list
I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but daytime drinking has suddenly become A Thing. Even in my student days, when drinking was taken almost as seriously as studying, it was considered bad form to start preparing the bathtub punchbowl until at least 5pm.
Mustard vodka and more at experimental cocktail bar Clerkenwell & Social
“I think I snogged that bloke over there at prom,” said Carla, as she plonked herself down at the table. And thus began our nostalgic evening out at Clekenwell & Social, not just because Carla spent the evening trying to suss out whether the ginger bloke about three feet away was indeed one of her past conquests, […]
Independence Day at Trader Vic’s Polynesian wonderland
There is something faintly ridiculous about celebrating Independence Day in the UK; it’s sort of like if the French started cracking out the bunting every year on the 18th June to commemorate Waterloo. (I know Independence Day is more about the actual Declaration than the prerequisite fighting, but it was still all very embarrassing.) The London […]
