Samarkand, Fitzrovia

I  first visited Moscow when it was the capital of The Soviet Union. A grey, grindingly grim gulag populated by surly, downtrodden paupers in naff Nylon tracksuits, it felt only marginally to the left of Jeremy Corbyn's vision for a more egalitarian Britain. In terms of diet (ubiquitous fried sturgeon  tougher even than Nicola, Tsarina of Scotland), for a foodie, Moscow's only saving grace was its limitless stock of precious foreign exchange-earning luxury vodkas. It was only heroic intake of said bad boys that stopped my balls falling off en route to the Bolshoi whose thieving cloakroom babushkas would have happily sent a mate and me, like Zhivago and Lara, back out into the frigid windswept wasteland without the designer coats we had consigned to their care - cue a Cold War stand-off that saw World War III only narrowly avoided. Lately, Eastern Europe's signature tipple has been marginalised in London bars. But as the capital reaches 'peak gin,' I increasingly crave the clean hit of a textbook vodka martini. At the mezzanine bar at Samarkand, billed as London’s only Uzbek destination restaurant, there are over 100 premium brands from either side of the old Iron Curtain. But it's Russia that runs the show (natch). Served on a silver platter with a spoonful of caviar, a squid ink vodkatini uses Beluga Noble - entry level among a sterling selection that Russia's chest-puffing potato-faced Prez, Putin, can be truly proud of...at prices that would make Roman Abramovich wince. The mark of a killer martini, Samarkand's acts as liquid cocaine to the brain. Sipped neat from delicate porcelain cups as custom dictates, a cedar nut-enhanced Siberian winter wheat vodka called Mamont, poured from a bottle shaped as a mammoth’s tusk, is another horny beast. Less obvious vodka producer nations’ finest specimens also bear investigation, however: D1 English potato vodka; Chase Islay Whisky Cask Aged Vodka from Scotland's Laphroaig distillery, and American maize-based organic Prairie vodka, not least among them. Other bases are available across a range of cocktails and service is a sweet as Sauvelle Crafted; a creamy rich vanilla and cherry blossom French wheat vodka distilled in a microbrewery in Cognac at £119 per bottle. What snacks we try - smoked aubergine puree and skewers of yellow fin tuna and flaccid yellow courgette with a bland sour cream dip - don't have me rushing to add a trip to Tashkent to my bucket list, unfortunately. Might that be why, on a Thursday evening in busy Fitzrovia, Samarkand is as deserted as the Steppes in January?

33 Charlotte Street WT 3RR 3871 4969 www.samarkand.london

House of Ho; Fitzrovia

Now v Then

The long ascent of this rickety Fitzrovia townhouse’s winding staircase used to be rewarded with drinks in what was the raffish Red Bar at Bam-Bou. So skew-whiff were the escalier's treads (they still are), the descent was (is) fraught with danger for the well-irrigated unwary. Not that I'll be hanging around long enough to get so tight as to risk such a downfall tonight at the Red Bar's successor: I don't dig this room. All bland woods and pear green upholstery, tthe attic lounge at House of Ho is less crop top and bronze spray-on batty rider-workin' Asian resort ho', more ho-hum Brum circa 1991. If this is a taste of Vietnam with a modern twist’, gimme the pre-75 look. If I were management, I'd Napalm the room and go for The Fall of Saigon. Fortunately, this Ho’s cocktails aren't as humdrum as her threads. Pick a base spirit and dive in! Whisky fanciers will do well to order Hibiki, Ardbeg, matcha tea, lemon and yuzu Cho Lon Sour. Tequila, infused with kaffir lime leaves, then bolstered with Czech herbal liqueur and lemongrass syrup makes for a similarly on-fleek (I'm down wit dem yoot, me!) East-West sour; while Ho La Da is a ho-li-day camp tropical muddle of mango, coconut, pineapple and Bacardi. Gin and sake with pineapple cordial informs a datable martini; at £16, it should also include a free lap-dance. Service is courteous and snacks of dumplings and spring rolls are fine with wines by the glass or Singha beer. In such a confined space, banging House music leaves me as shell-shocked as a GI at the height the Tet Offensive. 

1 Percy Street W1T 1DB 7323 9130 www.houseofho.co.uk

My original review is at www.squaremeal.co.uk 

Red Bar at Bam-Bou, Fitzrovia

It's London Cocktail week and the city is 'pure hoaching', as they say in Glasgow. The appetite for  bargain £4 cocktails at over 150 fine participating bars is positively Hogarthian. And why not? To show willing, I join the merry melee and hit Bam-Bou, that Fitzrovia shrine to Indochine. So popular is it tonight, there's a 1-in-1-out  door drama to deal with. Queue to get in? I don't think so. This calls for cunning. Spotting the metrosexual manager's obvious interest in my date's designer man bag (which I haven't previously clocked, so fashion-blind am I these days), I tell him about a website I've read about where boys can bag such upscale bags on a weekly hire basis. He's astonished...and grateful....and more importantly, I'm in like Flynn, courtesy of my totes bag-envious NBF. The climb, up flights of sloping stairs, to the top floor of this rickety-rackety old townhouse is a long but ultimately rewarding one. Bam-Bou’s Red Bar warrants repeat visits. As its reputation grows outside its native islands, Japanese whisky has become the latest string to the Bam-Bou bow. Bourbon barrel Yamazaki; distinguished Suntory blends; complex Hakushu whisky from sherry casks, and peaty Nikka single malts from the northern island of Hokkaido - sure to enthral Laphroaig fanciers - are among 60-odd possibilities. The Red Room’s other claim to fame is its reliable range of cocktails from £8.50. Highlights include a Japanese slant on a Robbie Burns; a Ginza julep; Ford cocktail; and and rum and ale flip - a tasty buccaneer brew that has Zacapa 23,  ruby port, spices, pimento and black lager. I'd happily stay for a few rounds but man bag man is itching to try somewhere new. The moral of this vignette being; if you prefer to park your harris more than 10 minutes at a time, never drink with an Aries.

1 Percy Street W1T 1DB 7323 9130 www.bam-bou.co.uk

For a version of this and similar reviews of all London's best bars, visit www.squaremeal.co.uk

Reverend JW Simpson, Fitzrovia

When I drop in briefly at this new bar, en route to Michelin-starred scran in starrier surroundings, I feel slightly over-dressed. My formal suit is at odds with such dilapidated decor. The former basement  flat’s original tatty peeling wallpapers and tacky pastel tiles suggest a 10-bob-the-job walk-in knocking shop (knob rinse and rubber included);  my poncey attire suggests a heartless pimp here to extract his outrageous cut of some hapless old hoor's back-breaking daily grind. In such tawdry surrounds, once lived not a lady of the night but a man of the cloth - the eponymous vicar who has unwittingly given his name, if not his blessing (he's long gone to meet his maker), to this devil's playground. It's new from the Bourne and Hollingsworth boys  whose other Fitzrovia bar, all great-great Aunt Mabel's parlour, lies within staggering distance and wherein the fragrant Mary Queen of Shops once enquired of me 'Keith, why are so many lesbians so fat?' 'Eating out too often? A Dunkin' Donuts fetish? Sloth?' I mused. After a hard night  on the batter, I occasionally look like K D Lang might, found drowned in the Saskatchewan River, her floating waterlogged corpse undiscovered for a fortnight,  but I would have thought  Ms Portas better placed than I to answer her own question. Anyhow, I digress. Greek (via Glasgow) barman Dino knows his stuff: from a hatch in his claustrophobic cubby hole under the pavement above, he dispenses quality stirs and shakes in retro cut glass stemware, served, with comped snacks, by a towering Tilda Swinton-esque brunette with to-kill-for cheekbones. Try Prune Manhattan (£9.50), Rebourne Royale ('gin, lime and elderflower, but livened with fizz') and Tequila and Sherry Cobbler. Less appealing to this brothel creeper's tastes - not  being big on  Ribena-y rinses, pimped-up or not - is Port-Berry Stinger. If you fancy a grungy alternative to fancier Fitzrovia dives - Shochu Lounge, London Cocktail Club and Lucky Pig are all on my go-to list - come on down, but avoid Sundays: the Rev is busy worshipping with his flock elsewhere.

32 Goodge Street W1T 2QJ 3174 1155 info@revjwsimpson.com

Purple Bar at the Sanderson, Fitzrovia

I've never been a fan of purple - the go-to hue for the mentally disturbed and midget US pop stars inter alia. Nor  did I go a bundle on The Purple Bar any time I visited it. 'Up its own arse' - the phrase that springs to mind when it was THE place to go. Its PR invites me back. All designer goth Twilight zone, it is the sort of dark, discrete, high-end, hole-up where RPatz, dumped by Kirsten, might woo her understudy. Previously accessible only to resident hotel guests, any Joe Schmo with the cost of its upmarket cocktails is welcome, so long as he's phoned ahead to make a reservation. That cost - £21.27 for a Sipsmith martini - is higher than a Ryanair flight to Warsaw but on balance, I'd still rather have the drink, steep as it may be.  A menu will be produced on request, but head barman Michelangelo prefers to offer a bespoke service. After an extensive at-table consultation, his suggestions - a vodka and rhubarb sour and an aged version of a classic Boulevardier (bourbon, Campari and vermouth) - are given the thumbs up; but a sherry-based alternative to a Martinez is less successful. Back on-menu, I like a selection of martinis that includes Franklin Roosevelt (a mildly dirty, dirty martini) and Eddie Brown (made with a dash of apricot brandy). Ultimat Kir (Dom P, Desbons cassis and gold flake) and  B&B King - vintage 1940 Martell and similarly aged Bénédictine at £490 - are perhaps best left to stars of Mr Pattinson’s wattage at a hotel that still attracts a fair few visiting A-Listers. That only six punters are in when I pitch up, mid-evening, says something about its current hot draw status in the eyes of resident Londoners.

The Sanderson, 50 Berners Street W1T 3NG www.sandersonlondon.com

read more reviews at www.squaremeal.co.uk

London Cocktail Club, Fitzrovia

Remember cherubic blonde JJ and his sweaty-under-pressure co-competitor James, the unlikely winners of Raymond Blanc’s 2010 TV gameshow, The Restaurant? While there’s no sign of the much-trumpeted prize, a restaurant to call their own, what you do get at their latest gig, The London Cocktail Club, are tricksy bar snacks: popcorn chicken; stuff on slates; penny chews for a pound; that sort of thing. Given the way the boys winged it when it came to full-blown cheffin' throughout the TV show's run, I'm guessing this will be it in terms of  culinary highs. Fair enough: the lads never claimed to be Marco-Pierre Turban or Vanity Ramsay. This, their second string operation, has been launched in tandem with Blanc and his on-screen sidekick, David Moore, baldy besuited boss of Pied a Terre, while the original similarly styled dive bar in Great Newport Street  trades on under a new monicker, The Covent Garden Cocktail Club.  Punky low-lit’n’loud, this narrow Fitzrovia basement rocks to a mix of classic hip hop, The Doors,  Springsteen and similar blue collar rock, the bartender correctly assessing that boy band-diggin' JJ should not be let loose on the bar's iPod. As 'bacon and egg martini' or 'squid ink sour' (no, really!) aren't exactly my usual tickets, I wuss out and go off-menu. There’s no faulting the liquid in my glass - a sexy Sazerac - but classics deserve better than a tumbler that might be called Krjap, were a certain Swedish store to stock such a nasty, flimsy item. Nor, will I tolerate an evil cake-mix glacé cherry masquerading as its maraschino bro’ in my Manhattan. I’m fond of the affable JJ - his commitment to cocktails is laudable and, largely, he gets it right - but as I've put it to him in the past, attention to small detail is what makes a good bar great. Tonight, JJ is neglecting his new baby for dinner with with some other baby, I'm told, but partner David Moore is in the house. Oozing professional bonhomie and inviting comment from this seemingly casual punter, he seems momentarily taken aback when the anticipated 'fabulous, darling!' fails to materialise. Recovering fast, he  breezily bats my quibbles into the long grass. To paraphrase: ‘What do you expect at £7.50? These drinks would set you back a bundle at the nearby Charlotte Street Hotel but, all the same, I’ll see what I can do, guv.’ Imagine Blanc’s face were one of his TV hopefuls as cavalier. Swing by JJ's joint by all means but, until further notice, BYO glass and cherries! 

61 Goodge St W1 7836 9553 http://www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk

New Bloomsbury Set, Fitzrovia

It’s a fallacy that all gay men are inherently stylish: Graham Norton; Gok Wan; David Furnish; cool? And, having marveled at their makeovers, what mentalist would let Justin and Colin loose on their living room? Are Glasgow’s MDF queens behind New Bloomsbury Set, London’s latest gay bar, I wonder? Owners Tom & Jerry (yes, really!) are old drinking partners (but not 'partner' partners, they tell me, should anyone fancy having a crack) who decided one night to open their own bar rather than subsidise somebody else's business, despite having no background in the industry. (Free tip: don't drink the profits, guys!) They claim its amateurish Victoriana/ 80s hi-tech/ 60’s repro randomness is the creation of a mate. Who knew Helen Keller was still alive? What does impress is the absence of the chippy gymbo attitude that mars some cruisy joints; NBS could be a by-word-of-mouth house party, the sort of impromptu evening where you end up thinking ‘Who are these people? How did I get here?’ And, given its suburban vibe, ‘Help! How do I get home from Uxbridge at 4 am?’ Without advertising, Tom, or is it Jerry, says early adopters have cottoned on via Facebook, adding ‘don’t tell anyone, but Wednesdays are “unofficial lesbian night”’ So, of course, I won’t. Drinks are fair at £3.50 for Budvar and £7.50 for a Bloomsbury Sidecar - a ginny twist on the original and the music is, well, like nothing you’ll find on my iPod. Feel-real hands-in-the-air shake-ya-disco-tits house and some Israeli punter doing covers of the Carpenters, as I recall it. The boys aspire to match Friendly Society, Soho’s most stylish gay bar owned and designed by...Michael and the divine Maria, a straight couple!

76 Marchmont Street WC1 7383 3084www.newbloomsburyset.co.uk