After something of a hiatus following our really quite unacceptable behavior in several of these bars that we profess to love so much; we’re back, and we’re going back to our roots by telling you about a weird bar we found when we were drunk that’s located underneath a kebab shop.
Manero’s is a yellow door located on Kingsland Road about halfway between Shoreditch High Street and Dalston Junction – it doesn’t seem to have any distinctive features apart from aforementioned bright yellow door, and entry is via knocking or a buzzer. I discovered it using the skills I picked up during my ill-spent youth in Wales, vis-à-vis; someone saying ‘go on, knock on that door, see what happens’ and the understanding that everyone fucking legs it if anyone angry answers.
Luckily for us, no one angry answered, a very nice bloke who promised to give me a treat if I followed him into his basement did. Always one to think the best of people, as well as one to ignore those videos they make you watch in Primary School, I promptly obliged.
Manero’s calls itself a ‘Private Members Club’, but this doesn’t seem to have any real meaning, all they ask is that you ‘please be nice’. Surprisingly enough, we managed to stick to this rule long enough to not be unceremoniously thrown out or have any threats of calling the appropriate authorities leveled against us.
It's a dimly-lit bar with an eclectic mixture of furniture that mostly looks like it was left to the place by eccentric great aunts; in short then, brilliant. The bar itself is very small, apparently the capacity of the place is only 69 (hee hee hee). I was going to make a very immature joke about that being just the right size and number for an orgy but I’d rather just lazily throw in the fact that I’d already thought of it and let you fill in the punchline. Any laughs you gain from this are of course, as a result of my dazzling wit, not yours, so please be aware of that.
At one end there’s a window through which all the drinks are served, and at the opposite end of the room is a raised stage bit where you can sit to drink them. I liked this, as it made me feel a bit like the central character in some sort of gritty and urbane stage play. Then again, as a self-centred narcissist with what has been described as a ‘feeble’ mind, I always feel like this, and everyone else in my life I see as basically glorified props. Basically, this stage-area bit fed my already inappropriately large ego, and you should go and sit in a big leather-backed chair and imagine you’re in the 50s and married to a woman called Marjorie for a bit too. It’s great.
The drinks were mainly cocktails, and for once, I decided to forgo my usual pathway of obnoxiously asking for ‘lovely lager’ until I’m either given one or told ‘please, this this a garden centre’ and have to leave. The cocktail I was made was called the something-or-other, and I believe my peers had respectively, the whats-its-face and the forgotten-what-its-called. Look, I’d been drinking heavily and I’ll confess I forget what I had, but it was delicious, as was everything I had in there. Manero’s has that rarest of things; a bartender who is actually a bartender and knows his drinks, rather than some dickhead who can catch ice in a fucking cocktail shaker and doesn’t know his Bellini from his Bellend.
Basically, Manero’s is a weird, dark basement underneath a kebab shop in East London that not many people know about, and that’s sort of the whole point of this blog. It looks cool, it has great drinks, and I like it there. Thanks for the great night Manero’s. And thanks for not bumming me in the back like in Pulp Fiction. That's always a plus.
J. Clee
Manero's
232 Kingsland Road,
London
E2 8AX
members@maneros-london.com
facebook.com/APrivateMembersClub
Showing posts with label Cocktail club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cocktail club. Show all posts
Friday, 4 October 2013
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
House of Wolf
House of Wolf boldly describe themselves as: ‘a multi-sensory experimental pleasure palace’. We were keen to see whether it could live up to the hype.
This blog was born out of a hatred of shit bars rather than an appreciation of good ones and I have been looking forward to my first opportunity to go to town on some overrated shitheap. Unfortunately my first mercilessly scathing review is going to have to wait because Carlsberg don’t do cocktail bars but, if they did, they would be nothing like House of Wolf’s because Carlsberg is horrible and House of Wolf is great.
There seems to be something of a trend in London for serving caipirinhas and mojitos at 15 quid a pop to guys in suits rutting around Barrio East braying about how expensive their drinks are and, ergo, how fucking great they are. Well, I’d like to begin by assuring you that House of Wolf bucks this trend like water over a bridge.
Recently, we visited East London’s third best Lewis Carroll themed cocktail bar. I won’t do them the disservice of naming it, but it begins with 'C' and ends with ‘allooh Callay’. It won’t be featuring on this blog because I tend to assume that if nothing positive stands out in the sporadic memory-bytes of a heavy night, the bar was probably fairly pedestrian. That said, having sifted through the haze of broken images in my head-box, I remember a prolonged altercation with a barman in which he refused to serve me a ‘Lady Boy’ (if you don’t know what that is I suggest you start watching I’m Alan Partridge). In fairness, it was perhaps not the most fashionable order. But get over yourselves. I had done everything that this half-heartedly Jabberwocky-themed twat-den had asked of me: re-mortgaged my house to pay for their horrible Estonian lager; put up with rubbing shoulders with the self-entitled wankers that make up their clientele; not punched anyone in the face. I don’t think it was too much to ask for them to produce a couple of Lady Boys when, however bat-shit mental that may be, that is what I wanted.
House of Wolf, in stark and refreshing contrast, will produce anything you want. But that isn’t it. Their entire staff have been trained by the Delphic Oracle to produce the drink you want most in the world based on the most vague of instructions. With instructions such as, ‘he only likes lager and fags, what can you do?’ and, ‘can I have something that tastes of despair in a good way?’, they will work their magic. The result is a drink that is so much better than what you thought you wanted that it will make you question your ability to ever decide what’s in your own best interests ever again. Of course, I’ve never been able to get even the slightest inkling as to what my own best interests are so I’m rather hoping that I can hire one of their bar staff as my carer because I can't be trusted and it seems they know what's best.
Once you’ve had a bespoke cocktail and decided that you trust the bar staff with your taste buds, sobriety and credit card, I would strongly suggest an alcoholic experiment in the ‘Apothecary’. The House of Wolf’s Apothecary is the forum that inspired J.K. Rowling’s portrayal of potions classes, discovered what Tiggers really like and is the alma mater of Professor Wheeto. And that’s all true (it isn’t). Never has numbing your mind with hard liquor entailed such a degree of artistic merit as it does when exploring the Apothecary cocktail list. With everything from popping candy to Szechuan flowers making up the ingredients, the cocktails are a sensory experience akin to losing your virginity: excitement; followed by confusion; followed by euphoria; followed by a nagging regret that you finished it so quickly; followed by a lifelong desire to do it again and again.
At this point I should mention that, because I’m a child and I only like new shiny things, I never made it past the Apothecary cocktail list. Can you blame me? They’re served with edible desert islands and blocks of cheese. However, the other writers on this blog moved on to the House Cocktail list. They’re idiots so the only feedback I could get was ‘I want to go for a kebab on the way home’. However, had they spent more of their lives training to be sommeliers and less getting drunk behind bins I’m sure they would have said something like: ‘I enjoyed some creative twists on the classics as well as some totally new flavours. They were a pleasure to drink and came at a very reasonable price’.
Of course, you don’t always want a cocktail that is infused with black pudding, designed by NASA and produced by Gandalf (actually, I do, I want to stay there and never leave). Sometimes you just want one of the classics. House of Wolf’s non-exhaustive list of classic cocktails, all at £7.50, with a promise to make anything that isn’t on the list, is exactly how classic cocktails should be done. I like a Martini as much as the next man, but I don’t like B@1 bar staff pretending that there’s anything complex about making one.
What makes House of Wolf great is the imagination and creativity that goes, not only into their cocktails, but into everything they do. From the decor to the food menu the House of Wolf offers something new and different and borderline arousing to the London overindulgence scene. Of course, we didn’t try the food because we’re kebab-munching pikeys.
What makes House of Wolf the best cocktail bar in London is that all of this comes without an ounce of pretension. With cocktail ingredients listed as ‘some stuff from the garden’, vintage Placebo and Bloodhound Gang playing through the speakers and staff who are happy to indulge idiots like us, the whole set up is a relaxed and enjoyable beacon of hope in the all-too-wanky London drinking scene.
Well done, and can I come and live in you?
181 Upper Street,
Islington,
London
N1 1RQ
020 7288 1470
www.houseofwolf.co.uk
This blog was born out of a hatred of shit bars rather than an appreciation of good ones and I have been looking forward to my first opportunity to go to town on some overrated shitheap. Unfortunately my first mercilessly scathing review is going to have to wait because Carlsberg don’t do cocktail bars but, if they did, they would be nothing like House of Wolf’s because Carlsberg is horrible and House of Wolf is great.
There seems to be something of a trend in London for serving caipirinhas and mojitos at 15 quid a pop to guys in suits rutting around Barrio East braying about how expensive their drinks are and, ergo, how fucking great they are. Well, I’d like to begin by assuring you that House of Wolf bucks this trend like water over a bridge.
Recently, we visited East London’s third best Lewis Carroll themed cocktail bar. I won’t do them the disservice of naming it, but it begins with 'C' and ends with ‘allooh Callay’. It won’t be featuring on this blog because I tend to assume that if nothing positive stands out in the sporadic memory-bytes of a heavy night, the bar was probably fairly pedestrian. That said, having sifted through the haze of broken images in my head-box, I remember a prolonged altercation with a barman in which he refused to serve me a ‘Lady Boy’ (if you don’t know what that is I suggest you start watching I’m Alan Partridge). In fairness, it was perhaps not the most fashionable order. But get over yourselves. I had done everything that this half-heartedly Jabberwocky-themed twat-den had asked of me: re-mortgaged my house to pay for their horrible Estonian lager; put up with rubbing shoulders with the self-entitled wankers that make up their clientele; not punched anyone in the face. I don’t think it was too much to ask for them to produce a couple of Lady Boys when, however bat-shit mental that may be, that is what I wanted.
House of Wolf, in stark and refreshing contrast, will produce anything you want. But that isn’t it. Their entire staff have been trained by the Delphic Oracle to produce the drink you want most in the world based on the most vague of instructions. With instructions such as, ‘he only likes lager and fags, what can you do?’ and, ‘can I have something that tastes of despair in a good way?’, they will work their magic. The result is a drink that is so much better than what you thought you wanted that it will make you question your ability to ever decide what’s in your own best interests ever again. Of course, I’ve never been able to get even the slightest inkling as to what my own best interests are so I’m rather hoping that I can hire one of their bar staff as my carer because I can't be trusted and it seems they know what's best.
Once you’ve had a bespoke cocktail and decided that you trust the bar staff with your taste buds, sobriety and credit card, I would strongly suggest an alcoholic experiment in the ‘Apothecary’. The House of Wolf’s Apothecary is the forum that inspired J.K. Rowling’s portrayal of potions classes, discovered what Tiggers really like and is the alma mater of Professor Wheeto. And that’s all true (it isn’t). Never has numbing your mind with hard liquor entailed such a degree of artistic merit as it does when exploring the Apothecary cocktail list. With everything from popping candy to Szechuan flowers making up the ingredients, the cocktails are a sensory experience akin to losing your virginity: excitement; followed by confusion; followed by euphoria; followed by a nagging regret that you finished it so quickly; followed by a lifelong desire to do it again and again.
At this point I should mention that, because I’m a child and I only like new shiny things, I never made it past the Apothecary cocktail list. Can you blame me? They’re served with edible desert islands and blocks of cheese. However, the other writers on this blog moved on to the House Cocktail list. They’re idiots so the only feedback I could get was ‘I want to go for a kebab on the way home’. However, had they spent more of their lives training to be sommeliers and less getting drunk behind bins I’m sure they would have said something like: ‘I enjoyed some creative twists on the classics as well as some totally new flavours. They were a pleasure to drink and came at a very reasonable price’.
Of course, you don’t always want a cocktail that is infused with black pudding, designed by NASA and produced by Gandalf (actually, I do, I want to stay there and never leave). Sometimes you just want one of the classics. House of Wolf’s non-exhaustive list of classic cocktails, all at £7.50, with a promise to make anything that isn’t on the list, is exactly how classic cocktails should be done. I like a Martini as much as the next man, but I don’t like B@1 bar staff pretending that there’s anything complex about making one.
What makes House of Wolf great is the imagination and creativity that goes, not only into their cocktails, but into everything they do. From the decor to the food menu the House of Wolf offers something new and different and borderline arousing to the London overindulgence scene. Of course, we didn’t try the food because we’re kebab-munching pikeys.
What makes House of Wolf the best cocktail bar in London is that all of this comes without an ounce of pretension. With cocktail ingredients listed as ‘some stuff from the garden’, vintage Placebo and Bloodhound Gang playing through the speakers and staff who are happy to indulge idiots like us, the whole set up is a relaxed and enjoyable beacon of hope in the all-too-wanky London drinking scene.
Well done, and can I come and live in you?
181 Upper Street,
Islington,
London
N1 1RQ
020 7288 1470
www.houseofwolf.co.uk
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Opium
The 1800s saw the might of the Empire of the Great Qing rise up against the British and French Armies in two separate wars that would rage for seven years. The cause of all this kerfuffle? Opium.
Obviously that time it was the drug Opium, but while almost certainly not as heavily addictive (to be fair, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried opium because I’m not completely insane), Opium Chinatown is sure to be the subject of a hell of a lot of discussion in Britain too.
Having launched extremely recently, we were keen to try the delights of Opium as soon as possible, so we rushed down there one Saturday with some women we were desperately trying to impress. So desperately were we trying to impress them in fact, that we got there before the ‘amber light’ came on and we had to go and sit in a pub round the corner for half an hour before Opium opened. Fucking hell.
The doorway into Opium is the perfect way to feel like you’re Pat Bateman (when really you’re more Pat Sharpe. Or at least I am, but I’m pretty sure the mullet’s going to make a comeback any day now, then we'll see who's laughing). They advertise themselves as ‘behind the jade door’, and they’re not lying. Alright, they are a bit, it’s slightly less ‘jade’ than it is ‘chlorine’ but let’s romanticise it a bit and say jade: 15-16 Gerrard Street is a nondescript door sandwiched between two Chinese restaurants, with a single buzzer beside it. Ring it - once the amber light is on that is, otherwise they’ll tell you to go away and you’ll have to drink warm flat lager in a sad pub round the corner - and they’ll buzz you in.
Opium is built in an old townhouse, and as such, you walk straight into the stairwell and begin the climb up. We were taken up three flights of very well-decorated stairs to the very top floor, which gave an amazing view out over the top of Chinatown and down towards the river.
The interior is particularly well done, it’s actually Texan-style. No, obviously not, it’s Chinese. Opium have painstakingly created the perfect Chinese / British fusion, right down to the wood used in the floorboards and the patterning on the seats. Then again, the nearest I’ve been to China is a day-trip to Hastings when I was 12, so what the fuck do I know about it? Basically, it looks loads like the bits I remember in House of Flying Daggers but I mainly remember that bit that happens in a blizzard so again, I’m a bit useless here. If anyone who reads this blog has actually been to China and would like to disagree, please leave a comment below which we can promptly ignore. It looks cool, alright?
Anyway, Opium looks cool, smells like those rugs you can buy in Camden and has a massive cocktail menu: so far so good.
Apparently Opium specialise in dim-sum, and it’s particularly delicious, but I wouldn’t know anything about that, because I was too busy panicking over the fact that the only beer I could see was Tiger for £5.80. Indeed, many of the drinks confused and scared me, casting an eye through the menu I noticed ‘The Classics’ as well as the many Chinese-themed cocktails, such as The Shanghai Surprise and The Kung Fu Fizz. All these interested me about as much as cocktails usually do: barely at all.
But then, I stumbled across the area of the menu entitled ‘Chinese Temperance Cocktails’ (non-alcoholic in other words). These all sounded like the kind of concoction you’d read about on the internet if you Googled ‘how do i get gum out of hair not my hair’. I’m a fairly adventurous drinker, but cress? Parsnip? No, I’m sorry, these are a bridge too far.
In the end, a friend of mine had one of the Temperance Cocktails, because apparently his tastebuds did something really evil in a former life, but he claimed it was ‘quite nice’. Some of the others we were with had a selection of the cocktails and declared them; 'stop asking me fucking questions about my cocktail, I already told you it was nice'.
I, aghast at the price, only had a £25 scotch. It definitely wasn’t because I absent-mindedly said the wrong thing to the waiter at the last moment. Not that at all. It’s because I’ve got loads of money and when the bill came I definitely didn’t consider trying to pretend another man ordered it and trying to leave.
(In fairness Opium is actually pretty reasonably priced if you’ve got a working human brain and don’t suffer from the Tourette’s version of the fucking Midas touch.)
To sum up then: Opium is a really cool bar, with great, relaxed settings, and a good cocktail menu, even if some of them do seem like they were mixed by Beetlejuice. The price is right, and it’s perfect for pretending you’ve got your ear to the ground in the throbbing London bar scene. Definitely go, and if you go from the 7th, it’s Chinese New Year, so I have no doubt they’ll have some great stuff on.
I know what you’re thinking. In answer to your last question: they left very shortly afterwards. After we took them to a lonely pub and I had an apparent brain haemorrhage whilst trying to order a drink, they cut their losses and they left. God I’m so alone.
P.S: Puns I considered using in this review but then didn’t manage to:
Crouching Lager, Hidden Flagon.
Big Trouble in Tipple China.
The Carafe Kid.
J. Clee
Behind The Jade Door,
15-16 Gerrard Street,
Chinatown,
London
W1D 6JE
020 7734 7276
www.opiumchinatown.com
Obviously that time it was the drug Opium, but while almost certainly not as heavily addictive (to be fair, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried opium because I’m not completely insane), Opium Chinatown is sure to be the subject of a hell of a lot of discussion in Britain too.
Having launched extremely recently, we were keen to try the delights of Opium as soon as possible, so we rushed down there one Saturday with some women we were desperately trying to impress. So desperately were we trying to impress them in fact, that we got there before the ‘amber light’ came on and we had to go and sit in a pub round the corner for half an hour before Opium opened. Fucking hell.
The doorway into Opium is the perfect way to feel like you’re Pat Bateman (when really you’re more Pat Sharpe. Or at least I am, but I’m pretty sure the mullet’s going to make a comeback any day now, then we'll see who's laughing). They advertise themselves as ‘behind the jade door’, and they’re not lying. Alright, they are a bit, it’s slightly less ‘jade’ than it is ‘chlorine’ but let’s romanticise it a bit and say jade: 15-16 Gerrard Street is a nondescript door sandwiched between two Chinese restaurants, with a single buzzer beside it. Ring it - once the amber light is on that is, otherwise they’ll tell you to go away and you’ll have to drink warm flat lager in a sad pub round the corner - and they’ll buzz you in.
Opium is built in an old townhouse, and as such, you walk straight into the stairwell and begin the climb up. We were taken up three flights of very well-decorated stairs to the very top floor, which gave an amazing view out over the top of Chinatown and down towards the river.
The interior is particularly well done, it’s actually Texan-style. No, obviously not, it’s Chinese. Opium have painstakingly created the perfect Chinese / British fusion, right down to the wood used in the floorboards and the patterning on the seats. Then again, the nearest I’ve been to China is a day-trip to Hastings when I was 12, so what the fuck do I know about it? Basically, it looks loads like the bits I remember in House of Flying Daggers but I mainly remember that bit that happens in a blizzard so again, I’m a bit useless here. If anyone who reads this blog has actually been to China and would like to disagree, please leave a comment below which we can promptly ignore. It looks cool, alright?
Anyway, Opium looks cool, smells like those rugs you can buy in Camden and has a massive cocktail menu: so far so good.
Apparently Opium specialise in dim-sum, and it’s particularly delicious, but I wouldn’t know anything about that, because I was too busy panicking over the fact that the only beer I could see was Tiger for £5.80. Indeed, many of the drinks confused and scared me, casting an eye through the menu I noticed ‘The Classics’ as well as the many Chinese-themed cocktails, such as The Shanghai Surprise and The Kung Fu Fizz. All these interested me about as much as cocktails usually do: barely at all.
But then, I stumbled across the area of the menu entitled ‘Chinese Temperance Cocktails’ (non-alcoholic in other words). These all sounded like the kind of concoction you’d read about on the internet if you Googled ‘how do i get gum out of hair not my hair’. I’m a fairly adventurous drinker, but cress? Parsnip? No, I’m sorry, these are a bridge too far.
In the end, a friend of mine had one of the Temperance Cocktails, because apparently his tastebuds did something really evil in a former life, but he claimed it was ‘quite nice’. Some of the others we were with had a selection of the cocktails and declared them; 'stop asking me fucking questions about my cocktail, I already told you it was nice'.
I, aghast at the price, only had a £25 scotch. It definitely wasn’t because I absent-mindedly said the wrong thing to the waiter at the last moment. Not that at all. It’s because I’ve got loads of money and when the bill came I definitely didn’t consider trying to pretend another man ordered it and trying to leave.
(In fairness Opium is actually pretty reasonably priced if you’ve got a working human brain and don’t suffer from the Tourette’s version of the fucking Midas touch.)
To sum up then: Opium is a really cool bar, with great, relaxed settings, and a good cocktail menu, even if some of them do seem like they were mixed by Beetlejuice. The price is right, and it’s perfect for pretending you’ve got your ear to the ground in the throbbing London bar scene. Definitely go, and if you go from the 7th, it’s Chinese New Year, so I have no doubt they’ll have some great stuff on.
I know what you’re thinking. In answer to your last question: they left very shortly afterwards. After we took them to a lonely pub and I had an apparent brain haemorrhage whilst trying to order a drink, they cut their losses and they left. God I’m so alone.
P.S: Puns I considered using in this review but then didn’t manage to:
Crouching Lager, Hidden Flagon.
Big Trouble in Tipple China.
The Carafe Kid.
J. Clee
Behind The Jade Door,
15-16 Gerrard Street,
Chinatown,
London
W1D 6JE
020 7734 7276
www.opiumchinatown.com
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town
If through some bizarre impulse you choose to go to a bar reviewed on this blog, God bless you. However, if this is the one you choose, you may need the patience of Penelope waiting for the return of Odysseus.
The fundamental flaw of The Mayor is that it just isn’t the secret it’s supposed to be. The first time I attempted to impress someone by revealing what lay behind that ‘inconspicuous’ SMEG fridge in the Spitalfields Breakfast Club, I was disappointed. I was informed that there would be at least a two hour wait. There was no way I was going to keep someone’s attention for that long without the numerous conversational crutches which I’d hoped this quirky bar would provide.
Fortunately, this led me to the discovery of Lounge Bohemia, so all was for the best on that occasion. Others, however, have not been so lucky. I have heard of people nonchalantly asking at the bar whether the Mayor was ‘in’ (as was the rumoured approach), only to receive a firm ‘no’ as a response. Reeling and with a very confused date who had so far been kept in the dark, another ‘cool’ destination would have to be found to salvage the evening. Without the help of this blog I’m assuming their night ended with them, alone except for some crayfish, slurping up some canal water. Or is that just me?
Maybe sick of validating smarmy wankers with a response of ‘yes, he is’, things appear to have changed. Now, you’ll have to queue like everyone else waiting outside Infernos on a Friday night, or if it’s slightly less busy take a seat with a drink upstairs while you wait. Like a pleb.
So, the essential feelings which you will experience as you attempt to get into this bar are confusion, disappointment and inadequacy – though normal sensations for us, they are not ideal for showing off your own innate knowledge of London’s underground bar scene. But maybe you thrive off this.
If you trust your conversational ability more than I do: go ahead and wait. Finally, after demonstrating the patience of a saint you will be chaperoned through the fridge door, following the sign which reads ‘Thrills’, and down into the kitsch bar area. The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town is finally revealed: It’s a bar, which serves drinks and has people drinking those drinks in it.
I judged someone instantly when I heard them discussing excitedly what could be behind the fridge door. This excitement reached another level when they were finally led down to the bar area. Maybe I’m just too jaded for the experience, but it seemed that the anticipation had kept them going throughout the wait, and that they were genuinely not sure what to expect. I’m not suggesting I’m a savant, but this does seem to impress the sort of people that think All Bar One is an okay destination for a post-work drink and that you probably need a passport to go anywhere in Hackney. During your time in The Mayor there is a strong chance that you will be stuck with a combination of such people and, if you’re lucky a group of ‘ballers’ who’ve stumbled in from the nearby City: not the ideal demographic to give you the validation you desperately crave.
It is an understandably difficult tightrope to tread if you intend to run a profitable speakeasy-style bar in London: too secret and the bar fails, too public and it’s not a secret. A victim of its own publicity, location and fame, The Mayor falls foul of this paradox. It is yet another ‘secret’ bar which somehow manages to belie its secret location by telling absolutely everyone exactly where it is.
How can I justify reviewing it on this blog, then? Bear with me...
The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town is the paradigm of what this blog is searching for: it is a ‘cool’ bar brimming with uncool people attempting to impress other uncool people. Also, at a base level it is a very good venue. It is symbolic of the mainstream success achieved by London’s bustling, ‘underground’ drinking revolution.
I’m more than happy to spend an evening downing £3, flat lagers at the Woodberry Tavern or doing something obscure in The Dolphin (another couple of candidates for London’s most desolate drinking venues). However, sometimes occasion calls for something slightly more pleasant – although I was disappointed that the cat food advertised was not actually real cat food, knowing my penchant for a bit of Whiskas to go with a few cocktails. Catch The Mayor at the right moment and you are guaranteed to impress. Grab the lounge chairs in the furthest corner of the bar, take advantage of the attentive table service, and lose long hours to the delights of its cocktail list (among one of the best in London). Savour the kick from a chilli and lemongrass margarita, or the fruity explosion of the Alpine Fizz. Try out the ‘Basil No Faulty’ or the ‘Posh Paddington’. How could you not be tempted by that?
Best thing of all is that you are warned not to exit through the fridge, but back out through the toilets. You are implored to leave with your flies down to give the impression that you’ve just been to the loo rather than a trendy bar. This is perfect if you’re like me and that normally describes you anyway.
Remember to make some quip to the staff about ‘it must be really chilly working inside a fridge’ on your way out: they really like it when you do that.
O.C
12-16 Artillery Lane,
London,
E1 7LS
0207 078 9633
www.themayorofscaredycattown.com
The fundamental flaw of The Mayor is that it just isn’t the secret it’s supposed to be. The first time I attempted to impress someone by revealing what lay behind that ‘inconspicuous’ SMEG fridge in the Spitalfields Breakfast Club, I was disappointed. I was informed that there would be at least a two hour wait. There was no way I was going to keep someone’s attention for that long without the numerous conversational crutches which I’d hoped this quirky bar would provide.
Fortunately, this led me to the discovery of Lounge Bohemia, so all was for the best on that occasion. Others, however, have not been so lucky. I have heard of people nonchalantly asking at the bar whether the Mayor was ‘in’ (as was the rumoured approach), only to receive a firm ‘no’ as a response. Reeling and with a very confused date who had so far been kept in the dark, another ‘cool’ destination would have to be found to salvage the evening. Without the help of this blog I’m assuming their night ended with them, alone except for some crayfish, slurping up some canal water. Or is that just me?
Maybe sick of validating smarmy wankers with a response of ‘yes, he is’, things appear to have changed. Now, you’ll have to queue like everyone else waiting outside Infernos on a Friday night, or if it’s slightly less busy take a seat with a drink upstairs while you wait. Like a pleb.
So, the essential feelings which you will experience as you attempt to get into this bar are confusion, disappointment and inadequacy – though normal sensations for us, they are not ideal for showing off your own innate knowledge of London’s underground bar scene. But maybe you thrive off this.
If you trust your conversational ability more than I do: go ahead and wait. Finally, after demonstrating the patience of a saint you will be chaperoned through the fridge door, following the sign which reads ‘Thrills’, and down into the kitsch bar area. The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town is finally revealed: It’s a bar, which serves drinks and has people drinking those drinks in it.
I judged someone instantly when I heard them discussing excitedly what could be behind the fridge door. This excitement reached another level when they were finally led down to the bar area. Maybe I’m just too jaded for the experience, but it seemed that the anticipation had kept them going throughout the wait, and that they were genuinely not sure what to expect. I’m not suggesting I’m a savant, but this does seem to impress the sort of people that think All Bar One is an okay destination for a post-work drink and that you probably need a passport to go anywhere in Hackney. During your time in The Mayor there is a strong chance that you will be stuck with a combination of such people and, if you’re lucky a group of ‘ballers’ who’ve stumbled in from the nearby City: not the ideal demographic to give you the validation you desperately crave.
It is an understandably difficult tightrope to tread if you intend to run a profitable speakeasy-style bar in London: too secret and the bar fails, too public and it’s not a secret. A victim of its own publicity, location and fame, The Mayor falls foul of this paradox. It is yet another ‘secret’ bar which somehow manages to belie its secret location by telling absolutely everyone exactly where it is.
How can I justify reviewing it on this blog, then? Bear with me...
The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town is the paradigm of what this blog is searching for: it is a ‘cool’ bar brimming with uncool people attempting to impress other uncool people. Also, at a base level it is a very good venue. It is symbolic of the mainstream success achieved by London’s bustling, ‘underground’ drinking revolution.
I’m more than happy to spend an evening downing £3, flat lagers at the Woodberry Tavern or doing something obscure in The Dolphin (another couple of candidates for London’s most desolate drinking venues). However, sometimes occasion calls for something slightly more pleasant – although I was disappointed that the cat food advertised was not actually real cat food, knowing my penchant for a bit of Whiskas to go with a few cocktails. Catch The Mayor at the right moment and you are guaranteed to impress. Grab the lounge chairs in the furthest corner of the bar, take advantage of the attentive table service, and lose long hours to the delights of its cocktail list (among one of the best in London). Savour the kick from a chilli and lemongrass margarita, or the fruity explosion of the Alpine Fizz. Try out the ‘Basil No Faulty’ or the ‘Posh Paddington’. How could you not be tempted by that?
Best thing of all is that you are warned not to exit through the fridge, but back out through the toilets. You are implored to leave with your flies down to give the impression that you’ve just been to the loo rather than a trendy bar. This is perfect if you’re like me and that normally describes you anyway.
Remember to make some quip to the staff about ‘it must be really chilly working inside a fridge’ on your way out: they really like it when you do that.
O.C
12-16 Artillery Lane,
London,
E1 7LS
0207 078 9633
www.themayorofscaredycattown.com
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
The Camden Town Brewery
If you’ve taken the time to
read some of the other gibberish which I’ve inflicted on this blog you may have
noticed a trend for cocktail bars. We think cocktail bars are great. They
provoke reactions such as ‘Wow, I had no idea this place existed!’, ‘This drink
tastes like a pudding’ and ‘Oh great. Another date in Nightjar...’. You may
also have noticed an underlying resentment at the amount of time I spend in
cocktail bars. Unfortunately for me (and anyone I’m dating) social norms and a
total inability to wow people with my dazzling conversation dictate that I have
to go to swanky cocktail bars in the hope that the setting will distract from
the crushing inanity of 2 hours in my company.
In all honesty, I’m not a
huge fan of cocktails, they may look nice but they leave me broke and
disappointed at the end of the night. I much prefer a nice dirty lager, it’s
cheap and what it lacks in presentation it more than makes up for in
convenience. Funnily enough, I wrote something weirdly similar on our sister
blog ‘my lack of sex life for people who couldn’t care less’.
This blog would be as dull as
it was brief if it was called ‘my favourite places to drink with my friends
(both of them)’. However, if it was, the Camden Town Brewery would be near the
top of my list. So please forgive some self-indulgence because, while it may
lack hidden doorways and a cocktail list like a Tolkien novel, the Camden Town
Brewery is a very cool bar.
The brewery, which produces
its beers under the railway arches near Kentish Town West, does a great line in
pale ales, wheat beers and lagers. Now I’ll be the first to defend British beer, but
more often than not I want something crisp and refreshing rather than some dishwater served in a handle under the pretence of being ‘real ale’. This is really
where the brewery finds its niche – finally we have some interesting beers
which can be served cold and sparkling without the need to look to Germany, the
USA or, heaven forbid, Belgium*. 
Hats off to the Camden Hells Lager for saving
me from yet more nights of Red Stripe and Fosters. This will no doubt offend
the purists who read the minutes of CAMRA meetings and think that anything that
doesn’t taste like soil isn’t a beer. If you find that the Camden Pale Ale
lacks the necessary undertones of mud and gravel I can recommend the London
Fields Brewery - where all the beers taste like compost. The only beer I would
exercise some caution over is a stout called Camden Ink. I feel a bit bad for
criticising it, I mean I couldn’t sue them for false advertising. I guess that
when I ordered a pint of ink, I was hoping that they would take it slightly
less literally. While parker pen cartridges aren’t generally a key component of
my preferred tipples, if you’re a big fan of stout give it a go. Also feel free
to send me hate mail telling me how wrong I am and how delicious Ink is.
‘What the fuck did you buy
seven arches for? You know we only have 4 customers?’
‘Meh, fuck it, I’m sure we’ll
think of something, how about dodgems?’
Fortunately, they haven’t gone the way of Proud and used the excess room as ‘art space’ so that overprivileged kids in red trousers can get in touch with their creative side and show how in touch with London’s arty underbelly they are. Instead, the nice folk at the Camden Town Brewery decided to tack a bar onto the end of their brewery. Unpretentious and simple, it’s everything I want from a bar: nice beer, brewed 10 yards from the tap,
served by staff who like what
they do at a price that doesn’t require the backing of a trust fund.
So that’s the Camden Town
Brewery - if you met someone in 151 King’s Road and are looking to impress them
on a date, don’t come here (or anywhere else I drink). On the other hand, it’s
a great little place to take your mates (or the mythical lager girl who thinks
that watching the Six Nations is a perfect way to have some couple time). In
doing so you will ensure that your chosen company sees just how cool you are
with your expertise in lesser known London drinking venues. If you go on a
Thursday they will even give you a tour of the rest of the brewery - I have
always found that tours are a good way to further high-functioning alcoholism
in the name of education. The same thing could be said of writing for this blog.
(*Fuck Belgium)
The Camden Town Brewery,
55-59 Wilkin Street Mews,
London
NW5 3NN
0207 485 1671
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
White Rabbit Cocktail Club
In a nearby shop window is a vintage poster which reads: ‘No
underground! Get over yourself. Visit Stoke Newington.’ If you’re not lucky
enough to live there or nearby, get on a bus and go, and while you’re there you
may as well make a day of it. If you can persuade someone to spend that much
time with you, that is.
Let your companion consider mortality in the beautifully macabre Abney
Park Cemetery. Some say death is actually a powerful aphrodisiac, so who knows
where this may lead. Best leave before dark though: you may actually come
face-to-face with mortality or at best a couple of ageing Goths wanking each
other off onto a tomb where ‘dearly beloved’, who ‘fell asleep’, lies waiting
to wake again at the Second Coming. Lighten the mood with a short stroll down
the serene Church Street and regain your joie de vivre by admiring the fallow
deer in Clissold Park.
After this psychological rollercoaster a drink is in order.
Where better than the mental medley that is White Rabbit Cocktail Club? I never thought I
would be writing the phrase ‘another bar inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll’,
but there we go: this is another bar inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll to arrive
on the London drinking scene. A touch of this inspiration, combined with a
pinch of steam-punk, gives the venue the appearance of having been put together
by someone addicted to opium. There is a large garden at the back - it was cold
and dark so I didn’t look - but I am told it keeps on theme, and am sure that
it will be a massive draw in warmer months.
The drinks themselves are delicious, made even more so by some
excellent deals. The Kir Royale, one of the best I’ve had, seemed to be made by
magic. The cassis syrup, unconstrained by the laws of physics, was settled at
the bottom of the glass and gradually mixed with the champagne. I was also
excited by the Caterpillar cocktail; due to my penchant for absinthe, and consequently
doing something desolate. Unfortunately for this review, yet fortunately for my
wellbeing, I dropped it all over my knees and didn’t have enough money to buy a
new one.
Avid Alice in Wonderland fans will remember when Alice and her
companions got in on the Two for Tuesday deal from Dominoes – the White Rabbit
crying ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! The pizza shall be too late’. ‘Too late for what?’
you ask. Who knows, maybe the rabbit actually managed to drink his Caterpillar
and that’s why he makes even less sense than a purse full of newts. At least, this
is how I remember it. Then again, my time with the green fairy may have blurred
my judgement somewhat. Unfortunately chain pizza restaurants have yet to reach
the staunchly independent Stoke Newington, so White Rabbit have had to
settle for the slightly less authentic, but still appetizing local pizzeria Il
Bacio Express. You can order in a range of antipasti and pizza in order to fuel
your Alice in Wonderland themed night and also seduce your companion with your sensuous,
grease-covered fingers.
If this doesn’t put them off, lure them down into ‘The Rabbit Hole’.
For surely, if they were not impressed enough already, this basement club space
(open until 4am at weekends) will place them in no doubt that you are at one
with the innate workings of this city. They offer a range of theatre, burlesque
and club-nights on an exciting-looking schedule. The night, ‘Too Cute to Puke’,
sounds way too tempting to be real.
If this is all too fancy then the Rochester
Castle is round the corner - a prime contender for bleakest Wetherspoons in
London.
Look out for White Rabbit’s sister venue opening soon on Hackney
Road: Through the Looking Glass – yet another Alice in Wonderland style bar.
O.C
White Rabbit Cocktail Club,
125 Stoke Newington High Street,
N16 0UH
0207 249 6748
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