Turntable, Holborn

Studio!!! 

Sazeracs and old soul sounds: Turntable should be up my street. BITD when I used to DJ, nipping off to New York on Friday and returning to London on the Sunday night red-eye from JFK with a suitcase full of pre-release 12-inch discs was a monthly routine. I'm thinking of taking to the decks again: like the Valentine Brothers say, Money's Too Tight To Mention (he says, before HMRC gets any ideas ) and at various hip launches where the client has coughed up serious dough and booked a rare groover - as opposed to some celebrity's brat offspring/ precocious 'model', paid £10K just to press 'play' on an iPad  - I frequently find myself thinking "'Useless'" (Kym Mazelle) and how my record collection is stuffed with way better "Stuff Like That" (Quincy Jones ft Chaka)  So, I'm keen to visit this new vinyl-only DJ bar whose playlist is collated by Jazzi Q of Soul II Soul, big in the 90s. The sort of tracks I'm hearing - Phyllis Hyman, Linda Clifford, Gwen Guthrie, Cheryl Lynn, Shalamar, and a sprinkling of Motown - are guaranteed floor-fillers so It's A Shame (as The Detroit Spinners sang it)  that I don't want to "do a little dance, Get Down Tonight". Clearly, I've picked the wrong evening; it's not exactly heaving like Paradise Garage in its prime or about to wrest the disco crown from Studio 54. Maybe there's a secret door to a VIP lounge where Liza, Jerry, Bianca, Andy, Calvin, Halston, Grace, Divine and the gang are partying like it's 1979? Named after classic soul cuts of that decade, Turntable's street level bar's £8 cocktails  - Jungle Boogie (rum, Mandarine Napoléon and kumquat) and Ain’t No Sunshine (Aperol, grapefruit, rosé wine and blood orange)... but no Evelyn 'Champagne' King cocktail - are fair enough but the austere, claustrophobic, downstairs dance bar is way too (Barry) white; stark and boxy, unlike the late great growler's loin-locking smoochers, it's neither sexy nor Chic -  more joyless Norwich nightclub circa Joy Division tonight. Will I come back and order South Asian street food staples - Malay chicken, hot and sour fish, or lentil and aubergine curry -  to eat to the beat? Tempus fugit! I'm off home to mix Manhattans, Boogie Oogie Oogie round my sitting room, and hatch my big comeback plan.

7 - 9 Norwich Street EC4A 1EJ 7112 9179  http://www.turntable.london

Cahoots, Soho

Duncan Stirling and Charlie Gilkes do love a theme bar. The pair owns Made In Chelsea magnets such as Bunga Bunga (bottom-pincher-plagued cheesy Neapolitan 1950s pizza parlour), Bart's (Val de Sloane Square après-ski chalet shindig) and Mr. Fogg's (Victorian voyager's Mayfair town 'hice' or tweedy 30s-throwback MP Jacob Rees-Mogg's gaff, I can never quite decide). Their latest wheeze replaces what was the no-less heavily staged DISCO (Cahoots' self-explanatory 70s-style predecessor, sadly, nowhere near as dangerously debauched as Studio 54, as this tearaway teen remembers it). So convincing is the mise-en-scène that is the venue's entrance - flagged up by a sign that says "To The Trains", accessed via a wooden escalator that leads to a ticket office manned by the first of various period-piece extras straight out of Foyle's War - foreign tourists are convinced Kingly Court Station is actually part of the London Underground network. If it were a station, it would be on the Party Line; for here's a morale-boosting knees-up in a full-blown recreation of a Tube station (complete with old Bakerloo line carriage) circa Biggin Hill and Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover. Van-loads of vintage props set the scene and, when I drop in, some game birds have gaily entered into the spirit by dressing in 40s mufti, presumably in the hope of attracting a GI who will cover them with Hershey's kisses, shower them with cologne, Helena Rubenstein rouge and Nylons and whisk them away from bombed-out London to a lovely new life as a Housewife of New Jersey. My gimlet eyes, of course, see this barmy bunker for the charade it is. Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Stirling? In wartime Blighty, you'd be lucky to find Camp coffee - as in sickly sweet ersatz alternative, not espresso served by some queer bugger debarred from service lest he become the barrack-room bike. Here, you're on for cracking classic and contemporary cocktails billed as 'starlets and sirens' and 'wide-boys and good-time girls, all served - neat touch! - with free rations of ham and pickle cut-up sarnies in army issue tins. What's more, the two brooding Continental chaps charged with martini-making would certainly not be employed behind Cahoots' bar, rather charged and slung behind a POW camp's bars; "Wops" - "Italians" to you - being shamefully allied to those spiffingly attired but thoroughly beastly Nazis back in 1941. Any internment in this camp caper is no hardship, what with decent drinks and jitterbugging to Glenn Miller's In The Mood with hunky Hank from Hoboken NJ to keep you amused. Welcome to The Blitz... if not quite as the late lamented Steve Strange imagined it! 
13 Kingly Court W1B 5PW www.facebook.com/cahootslondon

Mr. Fogg's, Mayfair

Flustered by my temporary DISCO malaise (see previous review), I am escorted to the relative calm of a new bar to help me come down. On paper, ‘Phileas Fogg’s Mayfair mansion’ is theme bar hell, but the latest jape from Charlie Gilkes and Co is not as arch as it sounds. In a witty cod-Victorian drawing room stuffed with exotica from the fictional traveller’s foreign adventures, staff, lookers all - Old Etonian Gilkes's ex-fags? - appear in duds from Flashman's days. Dapper chaps who might otherwise have become estate agents in Fulham, mix seriously pukka cocktails - Brooklyn, blinker, sazerac and whisky snapper (£10). Served on vintage cake stands, we eat toasted sandwiches of the type I'd theoretically rustle up - coming home late, squiffy and famished - on my Breville toaster, if only the bloody thing hadn't gone the same way as my George Forman Grill after gathering dust in a cupboard for years. Spookily, a footman appears with a drink before I can order one. "I thought Sir would appreciate a vieux carré?" Either he's psychic, or he's been reading my reviews: here's a New Orleans classic  Sir does very much appreciate. Should I poach Mr Flogg's flunky for my personal Passepartout? My drinking companion, editor of an in-flight mag aimed at Euro-yoof, is also down with his drink, a Bobby Burns, if not the company - decidedly straight and mainstream. "We're in Mayfair not Dalston, Dorothy!" Mr Fogg's, and its owners' other bars Bunga Bunga, Maggie's and Bart’s aren't aimed at me even if  I do (technically) live in Chelsea. Merchant banker-infested Earls Court is no longer the louche locale I was originally drawn to. Gilkes has the toff market all taped up, and (top) hats off to him for that. At least  Made In Chelsea dry cleans its clobber and washes under its oxters -  not something that can be said of the cruddy Clapton contingent.  Ollie and Millie's silly vanilli sort notwithstanding, this Mayfair blast is totes Fogg-horny.

15 Bruton Lane, W1J 6JD 7299 1200 http://mr-foggs.com 

Disco, Soho Part 2

Whenever I hear its unmistakable opening bars, Van McCoy's 70's classic The Hustle still thrills me to the core.  The Whispers; The Chi-Lites; George McRae; Teddy Pendergrass; The Hues Corporation: such was the diet of a 4-to-the-floor fan kid in his bedroom, dreaming of strutting far-off Manhattan's seemingly unattainable light-up dance floors. It was a fantasy that would presently come true, however. Clocking the bold slogan I'd had printed in white on a black t-shirt,  Steve Rubell, co-owner of the world's most notorious night club... EVER, spots this precocious wee Scot, not yet legally old enough to drink,  chancing his luck at the Big Apple’s most hard to crash door.  picking me out from among the clamouring hordes of hopefuls in their thousands at his venue’s besieged portals, he beckons me to come forward "FUCK STUDIO 54?" - for such was the message of my gamble in  reverse psychology - "You got some nerve, kid!’ Fearing the worst, the cocky kid is quaking inside, all yellow Jello in 501 jeans. After what seemed like at least a decade…..he smiles and pulls back the velvet rope that separates mere mortals from disco heaven. "Welcome to Studio 54. Enjoy!" says God, handing me a 54-embossed lifetime VIP membership for my chutzpah; this, to the utter incredulity of my hard-bitten Manhattan leather queen roomie who had warned such impudence would see us both permanently banished to Brooklyn or some other bridge and tunnel hell. Fast forward to 2013. If - as Charlie  Gilkes just has  - you are going to open a London club that aims to recreate NYC's glory days (i.e circa Shalamar), expect me to be your pickiest critic. Accomplished international Hustler; DJ; Fire Island tea dance fixture:  DISCO is in my DNA. Well, perhaps not quite all things. What was consumed in 54's inner sanctum, vintage Dom P aside, never really interested me.  Fly Robin Fly by Silver Convention, not a silver spoon at my nose, was all I needed to get high. But as I head towards the party Charlie (ironic name for a nightclub owner, no?) is throwing for DISCO Soho's launch, I am coming over all queer - and not in a YMCA way. You See The Trouble With Me (as big old Bazza White sang it) is the hash brown I ate at a party I attended earlier was exactly what it said on the tin and its key ingredient’s woozy warpy ways  are kicking in. And not in a good way. As fake hair-flicky drag queens camp it up and DISCO's waiters in gold shorts and muscle vests take to the floor for their well-choreographed routine to The Fatback Band's Bus Stop,  I'm becoming increasingly claustrophobic, panicked by flashbacks. Fraying around the edges, I am beginning to Freak, and not in a Chic way. How come? Because DISCO, entered via a mocked-up door to a Pan-Am 747, feels Mighty Real (RIP Sylvester). Not up there with 54 of course, but it could be a dive in downtown Hoboken circa Boogie Ooogie Oogie. What's really upsetting me though, is a mural in the style of Keith Haring - imagery that I will forever associate with New York in those dark days when the perma-party turned to carnage. Suddenly, they are all back in the room. Warren; Steve; Angel; Karl; Calvin; Lloyd: gym buff blokes in their prime turned overnight into sarcoma-riddled, zombie-eyed cadavers as the Big A felled 50% of my disco buds. Add to this, a worrying-looking go-go dancer that, in my current altered state, I take to be a short-arse London society queen with her head stuck inside a glitter ball. "Wow! Is that really Fran Cutler?" I say. "Not with that body" quips catty person unknown. Or have I hallucinated that too? Sweaty, clammy, breathless,  I flee Gilkes's undoubtedly fine and fun vision of 1979 before I can critique DISCO's disco drinks - tequila sunrise, Harvey Wallbanger, blue lagoon. Based on his other venue's cocktails (Bunga Bunga, Maggie's Bart's), I imagine they are all perfectly acceptable. “ Take deep breaths and repeat ten times "I Will Survive" I say to myself as Gilke's PR leads me up towards fresh air and spirits me off to the relative sanity of his other new gaff, Mr. Fogg's (see next review). Music was always my party drug of choice. The same can’t be said of so many Studio54  regulars that have long since joined Steve Rubell, partying on at the greatest disco the skies have ever seen, no doubt.  

DISCO, 13 Kingly Court W1 7299 1222 http://disco-london.com

Disco, Soho

Do I really need to go to... DISCO?

What: a new nightclub from Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling - the brains behind Bunga Bunga and Maggie’s - disco promises ‘the glamour of Studio 54 and the atmosphere of Paradise Garage’ (I'll be the judge of that, mista!) with podium dancers and shirtless waiters in shiny tight shorts designed to show off their glitter-balls

Where: 13 Kingly Court, Soho. Twitter @DiscoSoho

When: from 28th June 

Pros: Ask the Hot Shot DJ for your fave Instant Replay, then get set to Jump To The Beat.  Do It Anyway You Wanna (Do It), and Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah! Yowsah! Yowsah!) at Funkytown’s latest Boogie Wonderland. Young Hearts Run Free, so after some (eye-to-eye) Contact, get ready to Get Down and Push Push (In The Bush) with those Bad Girls (toot, toot, yeh, beep, beep!!) 

Cons: none. A 70’s Disco Inferno? That’s The Way I Like It (uh-huh, uh-huh) and Shame Shame Shame, shame on you, if you can’t dance too! 

Go with: Gary’s Gang, Ms Grace, her Sister, Sledge, and Le Freak - coz He’s The Greatest Dancer.  

PS: bonus points to everyone that can identify who recorded all those big disco hits.
Here's one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5TlpUF2GGw

READ MY JULY 2013 REVIEW OF MY NIGHT AT DISCO here http://tinyurl.com/qfuqzdg

Queen of Hoxton, Shoreditch

Question: do I really need to attend... Summertime on the Rooftop?

What: hip happenings and open-air cinema in a Shoreditch boozer’s roof-top garden.

Where: The Queen of Hoxton, 1 - 5 Curtain Road EC2

When: from May until September see www.queenofhoxton.com for details

Pros: Keep On Movin’ to old skool summery sounds from guest DJs Jazzie B, Norman Jay at al at Headphone Disco. Get your best cossie’n’sarong on and create a splash at Hot Tub Tropicana parties. Watch Some Like It Hot, Taxi Driver and other cool classic flicks at the Queen’s nightly alfresco cinema paradiso (also showing).

Cons: surely no amount of iced tea cocktails could compensate for sitting through Jaws, again? That rubber shark is just not scary any more. Did someone say hot tubs? Warm bubbling liquid petri dishes = hypochondriac hell

Go with: Piz Buin Factor 30. ‘Burn baby burn, disco inferno’ is not to be taken literally.

3 Cromwell, South Kensington

I have been to so many different incarnations of this townhouse bar/ members club/ restaurant, they blur into one largely because they were universally dire - Dorsia the latest dud to exit the building. My pal Auntie Lynne - a seminal 60's dolly bird - says this pile was a 'with it' scenek in its heyday as The Cromwellian when everyone who was anyone - from the Stones to those too stoned to remember - partied at this stucco-pillared pile. Hendrix played his first London gig here and Elton (before he was even 'Elton') gigged in its basement discotheque. (Fun history lesson here thecromwellian.wordpress.com/ )  What Mick , Marianne and their Swing 60s gang would make of  3 Cromwell - new from posh party organiser Howard Spooner - is anybody's guess. Cool London has swings out East, leaving SW7 to the Made In Chelsea set - those toffy twats that make me glad I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth...or up my nose, more likely. Tonight's shindig is fuelled by nothing more sinister than booze - big spender bubbles, doable mojitos and a gum-botheringly astringent gin punch. Served gratis, it's saying something that it's left unfinished by my three hooch Hoover homies, none of whom rate 3 C... although junior sports journo from Croydon is hardly the gaff's target demographic, to be fair. The main bar and (steak/frites/salad-only) restaurant's punked-up jokey country '"hice" decor doesn't look much different from Dorsia, as I recall it. Garish neon lighting in the Stygian disco (do something about the hellish pong from the loos, guys) suggests a Hamburg porn video arcade - wipe-clean padded walls, a private booth. The sort of wankers who'll dig the new Cromwellian are quite possibly among those on Tatler's list of London's most eligible bachelors under 30 whose most attractive feature is their impending inheritance. As ’a tongue in cheek nod to aristocratic service of yesteryear,' I'm told, staff sports tweed and flat caps. In another nod to yesteryear, the soundtrack lurches chaotically from Bob Marley to Elvis with a bit of 70s jazz funk thrown in. It's as if someone hit the iPod shuffle button. Did the DJ spin the old regulars' discs - The Animals, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder or The Hollies, one of whom, 60's chick Lynne knocked back the first night she came here? I can't say. After barely 20 minutes, I'm at the bus stop. Bus Stop? The Hollies? See what I did there?  http://tinyurl.com/ccd83gt

3 Cromwell Rd SW7 3397 7838 www.3cromwell.com 

Disco Drinks

Currently, there’s a lot of love around for the era when John Travolta, in his flash white suit, gyrated to the Bee Gees; Sylvester made everyone feel mighty real; and cowboys, construction workers and cops encouraged young men to have fun at the YMCA. Party like it’s 1978 as Keith Barker-Main steps back to the disco decade

Drink these:

Kitsch cocktail Blue Lagoon (vodka, blue Curaçao and lemonade plus plastic mermaid/paper umbrella) was as big as Boney M back in the day. Black Russian (vodka and Kalhua), Piña Colada and Harvey Wallbanger were the toast of Studio 54, but the ultimate 70’s cocktail is exotic Californian import, Tequila Sunrise.

Make it:

To make Tequila Sunrise: pour 3 parts Patrón (or similar) and 6 parts orange juice over ice. Slowly add 1 part grenadine. It will sink to the bottom of the glass, creating the ‘sunrise’ effect. Garnish with The Eagles 1970’s track of the same name.

Disco down:

LONDON: Rollerdisco  www.rollerdisco.com

Nothing says ‘the 70s’ like a rollerdisco. Order Screwdriver (vodka and orange) and skate to I Will Survive and Young Hearts Run Free at this vibey Vauxhall club.

EDINBURGH: The Shack www.theshackedinburgh.co.uk

Book in with ten pals at a Rose Street boogie bar serving retro rinses and get a Barry White-sized ‘pizza banquet’ free on Fridays.

LIVERPOOL/ BIRMINGHAM/ NATIONWIDE: Flares www.barsandvenues.co.uk

The clue is in the name. Add platforms, sequin boob tube and feather boa for a F-ABBA night out at a chain where disco anthems are always in the mix. 

NEWCASTLE: Quilted Camel www.quiltedcamel.com

Le Freak, c’est chic! As are afro wigs and other fancy dress at this ‘retro 70s bar’ where it’s permanently party time.

Alternatively, throw a Saturday Night Fever party at home. Stream discos greatest hits via http://loudcity.com/stations/i-love-disco and get the gear here: http://tinyurl.com/b5hqzuw 

Original article appeared in Metro UK 28.2.13.