Chinatown: door after door of culinary Eastern promises, roast ducks spinning away in neon lit restaurant windows, and the annual colour-explosion of Chinese New Year - an incredible part of London’s cultural life, but not one I would go to expecting anything more than a belly full of tasty egg-fried rice. So when a friend told me to go to a bar, located at 13A Gerrard Street in the heart of Chinatown, I wasn’t that surprised to find that there was no visible bar anywhere along this road. To find the Experimental Cocktail Club, you need to pretend you’re in some kind of magical world. Somewhere between number 13 and 14 will appear to the very keen eye a small black door, the platform 9 and 3/4’s of cocktail magic. And my goodness, what a well-kept secret this world is. The ECC is a decadent melange of a 1920’s speakeasy and a cocktail bar straight out of elegant Mad Men Manhattan. It’s a three storey converted Victorian house, with a baroque-meets-bohemian décor and an elite (mostly French) clientele to match its flashy cocktail menu. The downstairs main bar is classic and regal, whilst upstairs is smaller, and more intimate, with a piano decorating it’s bar and Chinese style prints to complement its Chinatown location. The drinks are certainly not cheap, especially with the compulsory service charge added to each bar trip, but the cocktails definitely live up to the bar’s name. With ingredients such as smoked pineapple syrup and lavender-infused gin, you are guaranteed to find something to excite you. Owned by a French trio, who have a few very popular bars in Paris, this place is fairly new on the Soho scene, having opened only a few months ago. But judging from a packed Thursday night, it is doing very, very well. And why wouldn’t it? It is exactly what you want from a classy night out. Exclusive, but not pretentiously so, expensive but not unnecessarily so, and so very beautifully hidden, the ECC is one of London’s most brilliant little secrets.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Friday, 14 January 2011
4. Freud
Nestled at the end of Neal Street in the heart of Covent Garden, this cocktail bar and art gallery is almost invisible to the untrained eye. On first appearance it appears to be a dingy, dimly lit basement bar, but follow the rather dangerously steep metal staircase down and far from the seeming descent into hell, this is in fact the path to cocktail heaven. Scrawled on the chalk board behind the tiny bar are at least 100 cocktails, ranging from about £5 to £7.80. And every single penny you spend here is completely worth it. I have never had such a brilliant Bloody Mary, and even the more inventive cocktails make perfect taste sense. The decor and the people most certainly add to this fine concoction; The small space, which is rammed on a weekend, functions also as an art gallery, with eclectic paintings decorating the concrete, minimalist walls, and the skilled creators behind the bar are friendly, fast and, as a nice bonus, always rather good-looking. As a result, this place has rapidly become one of my fail-safe drinking dens, be it for a post-dinner drink, or a pre-clubbing few before hitting the nearby Soho. Be warned though: a friend of mine got the train home in the wrong direction after just two cocktails. Lethally strong and superbly tasty: I’m sure even Freud would approve.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
3. Fernandez & Wells
Working just off Carnaby Street lately, a friend meeting me for lunch one day, introduced me to my new favourite place in London: Fernandez & Wells. With its wooden furnishings and its stripped down décor consisting of hams hanging from the ceiling, this cafe/winebar/eaterie has an amazingly rustic feel. Add to this the mounds of fresh, colourful sandwiches, and the rich smell of good coffee, and you feel like you’re in a farmer’s market in rural France, located in the middle of London town’s Soho. And just to make sure you don’t feel a bit too rural, it turns into a stylish wine bar in the evenings. Parfait.