The Alchemist, The City

Terry Christian-esque robotic drone aside, I like Mancunians. They're earthy, warm, funny and generous. However, if the London launch party for The Alchemist - a hit Manchester bar - is "owt to go by, cocker," as Bet Lynch would say, the last of those qualities is up for discussion. If you were introducing a new space specialising in (groan) 'molecular madness,' inviting London's most high-profile blasé bloggers, website editors and hard-to-impress hacks (count me in!), what would you serve? Let's see? Cocktails? So what Cheshire cheapskate imagined laying on free wine and lager, while expecting guests to pay for white martinez, chilli and mint daiquiri et al at the bar, was a smart move? I'm alright Jack. I identify an in-house marketing maven and tap her for a gin, rose and violette flower sour. Clocking this, some of London's less assertive pro barflies chew my ear: "Gonna sort out these tight Northern gits?" they plead. "Er...I'm not the PR!"...but I know a woman who is; and fortunately, the poor love cools my coterie's ire by the power of the bar tab... and the tongue-lashing she gave her recalcitrant client, I like to think. Alchemists turned base metal into gold, did they not? Tonight's faux pas is more a case of King Midas in reverse. TBH, I'm not fussed. I'd only dropped in en route to try Richard Woods' (more sophisticated) mixes at Duck & Waffle. From the Alkie's 50-strong (way too long) list, both smokey old fashioned  and smokey paloma are fair at £7.50 although I could live without the glass flask they come in - Croydon clap clinic connotations. Having visited The Alchemist a second time, I'll point you in the direction of chocolate orange sazerac and, if you are keen on cocktails as chemistry class, the Reyka vodka-based colour changing one (does as it says). Design-wise, a gargantuan eau de nil rococo cabinet as back bar is fun: the rest - high ceilings, neon, Chesterfields - is bog standard warehouse-cum-bar issue. The faffy approach to drinks might impress Manchester A-listers such as The Rooneys but the launch night bar food? Let's just say what did get reach us ( chicken nuggety things, mostly) would have made the Rovers' Liz McDonald blush. Where's Betty's hotpot when you most need it?
6 Bevis Marks EC3A 7BA 7283 8800 http://thealchemist.uk.com/bevis-marks

Duck and Waffle, City

Insomniacs with an interest in molecular mixology, apply within. Long after other watering holes have closed, Duck and Waffle’s lights (and creative cocktail-shakers) remain switched on, forty floors above the slumbering City below. Whether it’s for a wee small hours one-for-the-road Monkey Shoulder Whisky Sour (with rosemary and truffle foam), a G and T ponced up with rose petal and yuzu spume, or a bespoke breakfast Bloody Mary, D and W’s inside-out bar - think Garfunkel’s salad bar geared to adventurous drinkers with the £13 price of Dark and Stormy ‘bottled and bagged’ Bowery bum-style for modern-day Marie-Antoinettes’ amusement - is a fun, if slightly pretentious experience. Open 24/7 - although no hard liquor is available between 3 am and 8am  - its ‘iconoclastic’ cocktails are often prepared using unexpected ingredients: Sarson’s malt vinegar in your margarita? Why didn't I think of that? Staff, happy to waffle on about their ‘craft’, will not duck out of a challenge to ‘make mine a Mescal and Marmite martini, garçon!’ But like Marmite, opinion is split 50/50 on some of the smoke and mirrors mixology the date and I sampled:  A blow-torched barrel stave provided the smoke, lots of it, for a house Manhattan adjudged ‘complex and interesting’ or ‘like being at a party and accidentally drinking bourbon from the glass into which someone dropped a cigarette butt.’ Either way, you’ll find plenty to entertain you until the sun comes up. 

Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate EC2N 4AY 3640 7310 www.duckandwaffle.com 

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