Peckham Pelican, Peckham

When I used to spend time in San Diego (bored rigid by its plastic people and sunshiny superficiality), my idea of a fun day out was to slum it over the border in  Tijuana. Tequila, tacos and more soul than glossy California could shake a stick at: me gusto! BUT... I would not want to live there. I feel much the same way about Peckham, aka the Dalston of the Sarf. I love its exotic food stalls; rudeboy fashions; "Praise the Lordy" old West Indian dames in their mad mother of the bride hats and Sunday best floral prints; not to mention Frank's rooftop Campari bar, Peckham Springs art gallery (ahem, and bar), and those fascinating lurid beauty parlours wherein, there's so much acrylic weave going down, one carelessly misplaced Marlboro and the whole damn neighbourhood will become an inferno. On my latest awayday, I discover a new bar. All squat party decor, council refuse tip-dodging 1960s furniture, and DIY art - a surrealist spinning wheel after Marcel Duchamp, that's virtually identical to the original. Set in a concrete wing of a peeling Art Deco building, the ultra lo-fi Peckham Pelican is set to take off; located, as it is, away from the main ragga drag, towards arty Camberwell College. From a short list of cocktails, I ask for a bloody Mary. The manager smiles, ‘We’re out of Worcester sauce but I’ll cycle down to Tesco and find some.” £20 million pads or not, don't expect that level of service in Chelsea. While Bradley Wiggins sets off on Le Tour de SE15, his sweet female charges (so green, I wonder if their parents realise they are not upstairs in their bedrooms drooling over camp Justine Bieber posters) set about pizza making. My 3-toppings-for-8-quid special isn't particularly special, but as it's edible and made with love and isn't from Jamie's Italian; I'm happy as Larry - whoever Larry was. ( Grayson? Olivier? The Lamb?) To smoove 70s soul, I pore over a fascinating pile of ancient top shelf magazines found among the random junk dotted around the joint. Take Parade. Price, one shilling. Sample article: "Don't believe the current health scares. If  you ONLY smoke 25 cigarettes a day, your only worry should be the expense.' Life in 1964 was so simple. I could happily stay in my Peckham time warp forever.
92 Peckham Road SE15 5PY 7701 0225  https://www.facebook.com/thepeckhampelican?fref=ts

The Toy Shop Bar, Putney

As a nipper, I loathed toy shops. They were strictly for sissies. Places where our neighbours' brat  Pamela 'Princess-in-pink' Prentiss could indulge her serious horse habit. Me? I'd have happily made mincemeat of My Little Pony. Why, even today, I'm still partial to the occasional horse burger and frites whenever I'm en Belgique. Christmas? Ritual humiliation. Had I known about Esther Rantzen's Childline; I'd have shopped dandruffy Donald from Dundee, employed at one of Edinburgh's grand department stores throughout December. Back in Jimmy Savile's heyday, it was deemed absolutely fine that a grubby old man, who normally spent his days hanging around the bus station bogs, be given carte blanche to stroke infant flesh right under its blissfully innocent mother's' nose. "If you promise to be a good boy, you'll get a nice a surprise from Santa's sack" - the 'surprise', under his grubby red frock coat,  the now rock hard tumescence protruding from said sack. Had he been hot, like Billy Bob Thornton, the Bad Santa experience might have been acceptable.  A Spacehopper? Subutteo? A Hornby Inter City train set in my Christmas stocking? Not interested. I wanted to be boarding the real thing, King's Cross-bound, for a King's Road boutique adventure where I'd surely bump into George Best and supercool Sandie Shaw. So, the prospect of schlepping to a bar called The Toy Shop, over the bridge at the arse end of King's Road, doesn't exactly have me bouncing off the walls like wee Harry high on Haribo. Fortunately, any Hamley's hamminess is reined in at the new Putney kidult's playpen, decked out in acid drop brights like a psychedelic soda fountain. "Fun and Thrills" shouts a lurid neon above a back bar jammed with retro robots...at least, I think they were robots; I was too busy laughing at the staff uniform. Cool dudes in navy Oompa-Loompa-style aprons? More toy shop humiliation. Despite their daft names and Willie Wonka garnishes, cocktails such as clubland à la Polly Pocket, one typically jokey Jackanory wheeze that counts ‘sweets-infused sherry’, chocolate cigarettes and lemon sherbet amongst its ingredients, are pretty good. After a quick briefing,  Action Man behind the bar has got my number. His suggestions - professor’s negroni using artichoke aperitif Cynar rather than Campari (it's a trend), and a bee pollen margarita. Potent fig-infused whisky old fashioned (£9) is the sort of plaything I'd have had in mind, aged 5, if only I'd known that Compass Box is not in fact, a totally pointless compass in a boring box. 

32 Putney High Street SW15 1SQ 8704 1188  www.thetoyshopbar.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