Terrace Bar at The Chesterfield, Mayfair

Being asked to list my top 10 London hotel bars is a challenge I find almost as impossible as declaring my favourite Sinatra tracks; there are just so many classics to choose from. I love hotel bars. Old and new. Odd, then, that despite The Chesterfield Hotel having been around for longer than that other old Mayfair fixture, Nancy Dell Olio, I'd never set foot in it until the other week when its PR invited me to its Gin and Tonic Experience. I'm not a massive G and T man - better Tanqueray 10, No.3 or (if I'm lucky) Beefeater Crown Jewel (a no-longer produced, rare red letter day treat) in a bone dry martini - but the Terrace Bar's table-side tasting / tutorial has to be one of London's best value deals, a steal at £22. Knowledgable staff suggest a flight of three top notch gins, picked according to the guest’s palate, each paired with its ideal tonic water and a sprinkle of its key botanicals and spices to accentuate the gin’s DNA: Martin Miller’s and Mediterranean Fever Tree, served with strawberry and crushed black pepper,one particularly harmonious marriage. Moreover, the Gin and Tonic Experience's custom-made presentation set (pictured above) is exquisite. As for the room the tasting takes place in, The Terrace Bar is the sort of place I imagine Lucky Lucan might haunt had Scotland Yard's most wanted Lord not vanished without trace on a murky November night in 1974, wanted for murder. All forest greens, froufrou swags, butch dark woods and tobacco leather and polished barmen, suave in crisp white tuxes, The Terrace Bar epitomises Establishment elegance; its style harking back to The Chesterfield's creation after WWII, when the hotel was formed from three town houses, each rich in history. Sir William Harcourt, The (Liberal) Chancellor of the Exchequer that, in 1894, introduced death duties ("boo!") was one former inhabitant, as was William IV's bit-on-the-side, the actress Dorothea Jordan, who bore him ten illegitimate sprogs in as many years; one of whom was the great-great-great-great-grandmother of the current MP for Witney - David William Donald "Call me Dave" Cameron. (Insert your own joke about Tory bastards). When the miserly monarch had the cheek to suggest a reduction in his brood mare's allowance, the exasperated luvvie handed the tight git a playbill on which her caustic scribble: 'no refunds after the rising of the curtain.' Far from fuddy-duddy, the Terrace Bar's cracking cocktail list mixes modern innovation and reasonably priced classics in equal measure. Served in a jolly yellow earthenware ‘hive’ over honeycomb ice (pictured below), the latest buzz is a summery vodka, limoncello and lavender flower sour, sweetened with honey gathered from the hotel's rooftop apiary’s 40,000 bumblebees.  Snacks - crab cakes and piquant welsh rarebit (offered gratis) - are on-the-money. Silver service is slick; efficient staff super-sweet and attentive. A pianist at a baby grand plays standards. "There's A Small Hotel"....and it's just "Too Marvellous For Words" as Sinatra sang it.

35 Charles Street W1J 5EB 7491 2622 www.chesterfieldmayfair.com

City Of London Distillery (C.O.L.D), Blackfriars

Gin-soaked journalists? Shame I wasn't around back in the day to join caustic copper-top Anne Robinson on her legendary Fleet Street benders. I'm a bit of a closet fan of the ex-dypso dominatrix, you see. Another red top  - in charge of the News of the Screws before it was brought to its knees like some MP's cock-sucker whore exposed in one of its salacious stings - might fancy a few Fleet Street gin stiffeners when she comes up before the beak at the Bailey. The old bathtub brew - albeit cleanly and professionally produced - is the stock-in-trade of a new working distillery there; the only one to open in aeons in a City once awash with the stuff. Try the still's own label spirit for a fiver per large measure: master distiller Jamie Baxter (who has previous form at Chase) will talk you through the process.  But this juniper junkie's peepers were jeepered at the sheer scope of C.O.L.D’s blistering back bar offer. I lost count at brand #100. Try little-known local heroes such as Langton’s No 1 from  the Lake District or, produced in small batches on a Northamptonshire farm, Warner Edwards Harrington Dry Gin that's high on lavender and orange notes. Among an army of Johnny Foreigners, Death’s Door is the spirit guide I hope to meet at Death's door. Mainlining martinis in heaven -sans hangovers -  is my idea of bliss. Distilled from potatoes in Maine, Cold River is not your average gin joint pour. There again, nor are Clover Club and Corpse Reviver #2 - two 'tails from a small range of (not exclusively) gin-based joys at £8. Less impressive, is the basement lounge's inherited decor. The amiable Baxter is contemplating paint swatches when I descend on him: 'step away from the greens,'I say - never a good idea to colour match a room to the shade of one's gills after a heavy session on Broker's, Bulldog, Beefeater, Berkeley Square and all those other dangerous Bs
22 - 24 Bride Lane EC4Y 8DT 7936 3636   www.cityoflondondistillery.com

Negroni Bar, Smithfield

Owner Russell Norman has made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear at Polpo Smithfield, his latest Venetian bàcaro a Londra. He's turned an old meat market storage facility - where sow, cow and sundry bloody carcasses once dangled forlornly - into a bijou bar. Don’t be squeamish: Mr Muscle has wiped all trace of Miss Piggy from the room’s original Victorian glazed white tiles. That said, I’m not much for getting slaughtered in a windowless cellar whose main feature - dinky antique carved wood bar aside - is a slightly menacing door leading to what I pray is only a kitchen beyond. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre springs to mind and, unless your father’s name is Josef Fritzl, it’s unlikely you’d linger long in such poky surroundings. Still, for an evening ‘ombra’ (glass of vino) or a Negroni before dining upstairs, I commend it. The Negroni was born in 1919, when the eponymous Florentine count asked a barman to pimp up his usual Americano cocktail, replacing its soda with gin. Here, Sipsmith or Beefeater 24 are deemed the perfect partner to Campari and red vermouth - specify Carpano Antica Formula for optimum enjoyment - in Polpo’s £7 version of the classic. Other Italian jobs available include Aperol spritz, Henderson (white wine and Campari), and Negroni Sbagliato. Literally, a ‘wrong’ Negroni; prosecco replaces gin in this currently molto a la moda alternative aperitif.   

Polpo, 2 Cowcross Street, EC1M 6D 7250 0034 http://polpo.co.uk