Fox Bar, Brixton

This new Brixton booze bunker is in Piano House, a creative hub in a converted Victorian warehouse. I remember this dive from my one previous visit when it was Substation South, owned by Erik Yu (Opium/ Burlock/ 68 and Boston). With my fashion show producers hat on, I'd hired its DJ, Martin Confusion, to develop a trip-hop soundtrack for a client - Katharine Hamnett, if my memory serves me well. What I do distinctly remember was rocking up at the club to discuss ideas, only to find his gig was a raunchy gay uniform night. Not much was achieved: well, you try concentrating, surrounded by 'squaddies' in the noddy, hard at it on manoeuvres that are far from Geneva conventional! Having been totally transformed (and doused in bleach, I trust), the sometime sex-pit now hosts Soho House’s latest whizz; a drinking den inspired by the old taverns of Chicago, in which city the same group’s original Fox Bar is based on traditional English taverns, I'm told. Confused? Here’s the 411. Fox Bar sits in a narrow arch next door to a branch of Soho House’s Chicken Shop roll-out. There’s barely room for thirty souls in what feels like a sanitised take on the sort of joint Frankie Machine - the fly by night hero of Chicago novelist Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm - might have drunk at with his dissolute buds before graduating to injecting his veins with something a little stronger than Banana Penicillin, one of the drinks on a list worked up by Soho House’s global creative bar manager, Tom Kerr. Other classy £8 fixes (pun intended) that might have been less detrimental to Frankie’s health than his class A intake include Old Pal (a Rittenhouse rye Negroni), Southside Collins, Boulevardier and Nitro (espresso) Martini, the latter two on tap. Chuck in chicken bits and craft beers; Brixton’s baddest will be quickly hooked.

Piano House, 9 Brighton Terrace SW9 8DJ Facebook Fox-Bar-Brixton

Ladies and Gentlemen, Kentish Town

In the grim, grey, not-so-gay days of the 1970s, any unfortunate bent gent caught hanging out in the gents risked being felt up...only, not in the way he'd hoped for. For Lily Law, loitering lads were an all-too-easy cop. Nowadays, 'cottaging' (ask your grandpa') has been rendered redundant by Gaydar, Grindr and, if you like it rough, Recon. As for those caught short, after the old public conveniences became an inconvenient drain on councils' resources and shut, McDonalds finally had a purpose. Squatting every high street in the land, the ubiquitous Yankee burger chain is a blessing to bladders about to burst (Purchase, neither necessary nor advised). Lately, however, London's long-abandoned privvies are being snapped up by shrewd bar owners. Where once randy buggers' cocks cruised tail, cocktails are now being served. Bermondsey Arts http://tinyurl.com/oq4akhd; The Convenience in Homerton http://tinyurl.com/o57bjtd; WC at Clapham Common: the latest reconfigured loos to add to a growing list are in Kentish Town where William Borrell, owner of Vestal Vodka, has done a decent job (enough with the puny puns!) with his own khazi conversion. A mix of original Edwardian gubbins, jumble store jollies and paperbacks by the yard (something to read on the throne?) set the scene for a short list that will be regularly refreshed. Spend a penny (800 pennies, to be precise) on china teacup serve El Dorado 12 hot buttered rum; Portobello Road gin sour, Rhubarb and Custard, served in a Bird’s tin; or a Bulleit-based Gentlemen’s Old-Fashioned that bungs butterscotch and Werther’s Originals into the mix. Launched in December 2014, a steady trickle through Borrell's bogs' doors suggests this will be no flash in the pan. I arrived late, so I can't report whether they do 2-4-1 happy hour cocktails, known in such establishments as a BOGOF deal, natch.
2 Highgate Road NW5 1JY @ladyandgentsbar 

Ognisko, Kensington

This timewarp-y joy is located around the corner from a Kensington dungeon I regularly frequent. Next time I'm about to submit to untold torture there, I intend to, first, hit the bar at Ognisko and steel myself with a brace of its stiffeners. Two brain-blaster drinks down the hatch; even the worst punishment a psycho sadist can mete out - root canal at the hands of my dear dentist, Brian, directly across the leafy garden square from Jan Woriniecki's Polish restaurant - should be a doddle. A year after it became possible for Joe Public to access the grand stuccoed townhouse members of The Polish Hearth Club have monopolised since the 1940s, I'm finally here. Poland's cuisine - with apologies to any of that land's 39 million populations or whichever one of its 37 million ex-pat plumbers may, in future, tend to my U-bend - ain't top of my list. But its best vodkas very much are. Monumental martinis enlist some of the country's finest rye and potato distillations: Chopin; Sobieski; Belvedere; Potocki et al. Served in chilled coupettes, they are text-book perfect. And lethal as a KGB agent's bullet. On which note, the formal room, charmingly old school in a sort of frumpy 1950s Poznan matron way, is the sort of place wherein Cold War gay spy Guy Burgess might have convened with that equally traitorous c***, Anthony Blunt, after being taken up the bandstand by an obliging off-duty guardsman, in exchange for a fiver, in nearby Kensington Gardens, I imagine. For double that amount or less per drink here,  you can get buggered senseless on Ruski Standard Vesper, beetroot martini, Potocki gimlet and Tough Love (rye, Davna red vodka, vin d'orange and Martini Rosso) and a range of classics that includes side car and Copenhagen, snips at £8.50. My Christine Keeler-esque arm candy for the evening is particularly taken with her prosecco-topped martini - blood orange liqueur, lime, grapefruit and Wyborowa - from a list of ladylike libations. Bar snacks, elegantly served and blissfully ignorant of the term 'portion control', are the sort of Herculean fuel that could sustain you through the worst winter Warsaw can throw at you. Blinis; pelmeni; pierogi; grilled sausage; peasant soups; potato pancakes and puddings that read like the Polish entry to next year's Eurovision Song Contest. Sliwka w Czekoladzie, anyone? Me? I'm laying into homemade flavoured shots. So strong is Ognisko's horseradish vodka, gimme three shots of this liquid novocain and Brian can skip the injections and yank out my molars with his bare mitts, for all I'll care.
55 Prince's Gate SW7 2PN 7589 0101 http://www.ogniskorestaurant.co.uk 

I spy Guy (right)

64 Degrees Bar, Pimlico

Seemingly forever stuck in 1962, Wilton Street fixture Le Monde menswear boutique (pictured below) - with its jaunty Jamaican rudeboy hats, and knits last seen on Val Doonican - embodies Pimlico's eccentricity. It belongs in spirit to a London that's now largely vanished, much to my chagrin. If you haven't seen Ealing Studios' classic screwball post-War comedy, in which its kooky residents break away from the UK and declare themselves part of Burgundy, download Passport To Pimlico immediately. The film's title appears on the cocktail list at the nonconformist faubourg's newest drinking den, a warm, cosy, brick cellar hung with Warhol, Basquiat and Banksy-ness. You'll find it downstairs at 64 Degrees, the restaurant at quirky boutique hotel Artist Residence. It's the first London venture for a suitably oddball couple whose similarly whimsical postmodern Penzance hotel featured on cult TV bitchfest Four In A Bed - losing out to two clenched queens whose naff-looking Blackpool Bed and Breakfast had been voted the world's 5th best (by guests who had visited no more than five others, I like to imagine) Whilst time-warpy Pimlico ticks many boxes, its boring bar scene is also resolutely stuck in the past. So anywhere that punts Bourbon praline sour; gin, Tokaji and Aperol 'negroni'; tequila, mezcal, beetroot, cayenne and carrot fix, Acapulco (£10) and the aforementioned Passport (a gin, Syrah and forest fruit sour), should pull in the Pimlico punters. There again, as the locals are just as likely to be stopping indoors, happy at home, necking Blue Nun and Babycham, watching Dixon of Dock Green and Juke Box Jury on black and white television sets hired for half a crown a week at Radio Rentals, or eating powdered egg and snook and listening to The Goon Show on the wireless - good luck with that guys!
Artist Residence, 52 Cambridge Street SW1V 4QQ 7828 6684 

http://artistresidencelondon.co.uk

Portside Parlour, Shoreditch

Originally a pop-up, in Spring 2014, the good ship PP set sail from Broadway Market, docking in Shoreditch, its new permanent mooring. Formerly a hairdresser's, the new premises' Grace Brothers'-style window display appears to have been salvaged from a Chatham chandler's yard circa the sinking of The Titanic. Mercifully, there's so far been no sighting of old gushy gusset, Kate Winslet, a ludic' luvvie so full of hot air, it's little wonder she floated while others sank like stones to Davy Jones' Locker. Inside, all darkly-lit metals and black leather booths, the mood is v Querelle - benders on a bender as imagined by Fassbinder (only not so gay, or at all threatening) - with gallons of good-times grog housed in mesh-fronted lockers. Get off your rocker on autopilot, an absinthe-laced triple rum punch as lethal as any U-boat torpedo, or sink a poet - Johnnie Walker Black ‘re-blended’ with Talisker single malt, sherry and bitters in a Chartreuse-rinsed glass - a dark destroyer to wax lyrical about at £9.50. Non-rum recipes such as Hendricks, nettle, elderflower, orange blossom water and mezcal long drink, lawnmower sling, are similarly ship-shape. ‘Private dining curated by Sager and Wilde’ is set to come on board soon and, served until 11pm (with wine from £20) a selection of piscine tapas includes baby octopus terrine, seafood croquettes, and devilled whitebait. Portside Parlour is a sophisticated cocktail cabin: more Otis Ferry than Calais ferry, it floats my boat.

14 Rivington Street EC2A 3DU 3662 6381  www.portsideparlour.co.uk

Bermondsey Arts Centre, Bermondsey

Cottaging: Joe Orton was a fan. George Michael too, splashed all over the news, busted for waving his Whammer, sent to the slammer and fined $500 when the pretty police observed him 'engaged in a lewd act' in an LA loo. But why any wanker would hang out on the off-chance of servicing Banker Billy's willy in a water closet, before the pinstripe closet heads home to the wife and kids in Croydon (ahem) beats me. Perhaps the idea of being picked up by the fuzz, the smell of industrial strength disinfectant and urine, and being shagged in a  stall in sixty seconds flat, free STD included, is too potent a thrill to resist? Deep in the bowels of Bermondsey, these former London lavs can, in future, expect to find me loitering with intent, long into the night. With great drinks and its on-the-money mix of art deco, Gotham City grunge and 50s local authority utilitarian, this film noir bar is unlikely to be a flash in the pan. The venue’s young owner, George Garnier - a St Martin’s fine art grad who now rents affordable work spaces to local artists - originally envisioned the space as a daytime caff/ social hub for his tenants. Research, however, indicated that what today’s budding Basquiat or Banksy most wants is not soup and a sarnie, but a cool place to chill until 2 a.m getting bladdered on recherché rinses: chrysanthemum (£10) and Colias (Stoli, saké and Licor 43) among them. Beers from The Kernel, Picpoul de Pinet (£25), French bubbles, share platters, renegade rock, raw retro soul, and occasional live unplugged sets are perfect for a new generation of underground cottage loafers. The only bummer is, in 2014, to spend a penny here (French 75 and as bog roll thrown in) you'll pay £9. But with drinks as good as half hardy (an El Dorado 8, basil and quince sour), Georgy Boy (Garnier, not Michael) ain't exactly taking the piss. 

102A Tower Bridge Road SE1 4TP www.bermondseyartsclub.co.uk

A version of this and my other reviews is at www.squaremeal.co.uk

The Rosebery Room, Knightsbridge

When Anna Wintour issues a decree, Planet High Fashion jumps. The petrifying praying mantis in Prada has reportedly banned her staff from staying in Dorchester Collection hotels after the group's owner, The Sultan of Brunei - a less benign dictator than US Vogue's bobbed Nancy Regan lookalike - decided to impose sharia law on his subjects. I'm with Ms W (and Stephen Fry, Ellen Degeneres et al) on this one. Lovely staff or not, I'm body-swerving the Dorchester, Bar 45, Le Meurice (the Nazis' HQ in WWII Paris) and the rest until the malevolent medievalist mullah realises that taking moolah from gay guys out to get stoned on martinis, while simultaneously stoning them at home for being gay (or any other 'crime' he might persecute in the name of religion), just isn't cricket. Hit him where it hurts; kick the c*** in the cash register, I say, and take Champagne afternoon tea (from £45) instead at the Mandarin Oriental's dashing new Rosebery Room. On the grounds that a picture speaks a thousand words (and that I'm on a tight advertising copy deadline today), I'll let the above jpeg tell you all you need to know about the decor. What I will add, is that my only beef is with the grand salon's afternoon ambient state: even Harvey Nics' dummies aren't as unforgivingly brightly spot-lit. Named after the Victorian PM, afternoon tea was last served in this 'lost' suite in the 1920s. The modern version is a marathon take on the old, with highly prized single estate teas in gorgeous china, superior rolled sandwiches, scones, macarons, cakes (followed by more cake) and chocolate truffles ceremoniously slung our way until my sugar levels are up there with 5-year old class tantrum-thrower, Taylor, on a Haribo-high rampage. Service is every bit as sweet, with more staff per punter than even a dodgy dictator would command. Come 6pm, the lighting is, mercifully, knocked down several notches (but not so low that Nuclear Wintour would remove her shades) and Champagne cocktails are the thing. Bellinis built on tequila, passion fruit, lemon and green tea, or peppermint, elderflower, cucumber white pepper and saké are standouts on an interesting list. Inch'Allah, not only the fashionisti will boycott the Brunei bigot's Park Lane pile and park their size zero posteriors on The Rosebery's pesto-tone plush; others will too.

66 Knightsbridge SW1X 7LA 7235 2000 http://www.mandarinoriental.com/london/ 

The Convenience, Homerton

If only Homerton weren’t so inconveniently located (halfway to Hungary), West London luvvies could spend a penny or two at the Convenience, a former local lavvy. Tarted up 60s stylee, with Formica-topped tables and pastel tiles, it's run by sweet pee staff. There's nothing new about cottage loafing - the sort of pursuit that can get a boy arrested, as George Michael found out to his cost in LA: Cellar Door at The Aldwych, Ginglik on Shepherds Bush Green and The Attendant in Bloomsbury are all located in formerly louche loos, but this is no bog-standard conversion. Ginger beers will find quality East End brews, good grapeage on an honest mark-up, juniper-y London gins, a juicy jukebox and cooked-with-love scran from ‘the Nanas’ - no-nonsense graduates of the Dot Cotton Charm School. Expect soups and chowders, pie (steak and ale, chicken and tarragon, chestnut and mushroom) with creamy chive mash (£6.95), veggie ragouts, ‘proper’ sarnies and home baked cakes served with builders tea and a chinwag. Meanwhile, one menu item - London Glider cider - hails ‘from the orchards of suburbia’ (i.e Woodford Green) apparently. Next up, vin rosé de Roding Valley for springtime drinking on a decked roof terrace at this Toilet not to Duck.   

Brooksby’s Walk, Chatsworth Road E9 6DA http://theconvenience.co.uk 

Upstairs At Nancy's, Shoreditch

En route to tonight's Plan A (see following review), I squeeze in the Press launch of this new wee upstairs hang-out, away from the fray, at the packed Crown and Shuttle - a low rent strip joint turned groovy distressed pub - below (see http://tinyurl.com/bn9k3aj ). A room that would, by oily London estate agent standards, constitute 'a generous space for entertaining' (or in my native Edinburgh New Town, 'a walk-in wardrobe) has been got up like a film set. Full-scale shopfronts - their window displays packed with retro wares - describe a Spitalfields square circa Poirot. Theres even a Victorian gas lamp under which to loiter, should the local tart wish to spotlight her display rack. Cute, but I am reminded of a similar set-up I've seen before -  a cod-Oirish village square, deep in the bowels of Waxy O'Connor's in W1 (Not so cute). A tiny candlelit bar dispenses London gins and craft beers (Partizan, Redchurch and Five Points), wine from the barrel, and a couple of cocktails such as Nancy's signature - La Penca mezcal, Kamm and Sons and Sacred vermouth (£8). With food from downstairs' kitchens available, this would make a great party space for up to 30. (Private hire is available) I forget to ask who Nancy is but presently I spot, and join, some familiar faces outside the village apothecary. The conversation turns to Naomi Campbell's witchy barbs on The Face; Madonna hits; David Beckham's pants; Tess Daly's Strictly awful frocks; Selfridges' discount cards; and moisturiser - as it inevitable does when you join a table of tweeting Nancy boys and their female admirers. 
226 Shoreditch High Street  E1 6PJ 7375 2905   www.upstairsatnancys.co.uk

Hoi Polloi, Shoreditch

Hoi Polloi, the latest on-the-moolah beaux peeps magnet from Bistrotheque / Shrimpy’s Pablo Flack and David Waddington, has a wee cocktail bar in one corner for those not booking into the all day-brasserie. Tasty Festival of Britain decor suggests a1950s holiday camp; while the drinks menu references another strand of camp also prevalent in that decade: ‘polari.' A rich patois that appropriated many Yiddish terms, polari was used in public by gay men. Impenetrable to others, it was necessary lest their saltier observations betray their sexuality, leaving them open to attack, blackmail or arrest in the days before homosexuality was decriminalised.The old loingo has been enjoying a bit of a revival while other polari words have entered our language. 'Naff', for example, is an acronym that originally stood for 'not available for fucking', as in 'straight, ergo undesirable. Examples here include ‘omi-polone’(an effeminate man) - a Buffalo Trace and port sour (£9); ‘riah shusher’ (hairdresser) - a rhubarb and vanilla Tapatio blanco mule; and Sipsmith sloe gin and ginger wine fix, 'bijou basket' - tasty tackle to wrap your laughing gear around. I suggest a new cocktail called 'a cottage loaf'. Co-owner Dolly Waders, salty stick that he is, instantly catches on, where others are bamboozled. "Cottage loaf as in bread, or hair buns?" asks my 30-something friend Laura. "No dear" I say, in my best Kenneth Williams nasal whine, "more bread for hairy buns - as offered up by dolly Dilly boys to johns cruising in Soho khazis... vada?" Laura the innocent is still none the wiser. Not-so-queer beers include two from Beavertown (that’s not a polari term, rather the Hackney microbrewer); there's wine from £4, and snacks of pickled onion rings and salt cod paste, chickpea fritters with tarragon yoghurt dip, or ‘puffy scratchings.' The latter may or may not be code for risky risqué retro couplings. Either way, Hoi Polloi is a Round The Horney hang-out, and a club bar due to launch downstairs is to be 'a bit like the Joiners Arms' ( a nearby Hackney homo haunt) Oooh, er! 

100 Shoreditch High Street E1 6JQ 8880 6100 www.hoi-polloi.co.uk  

Image: vada the bona showgirls on the old Queen Mary (via www.cruiselinehistory.com )

See also http://www.polarimagazine.com


based on my review for www.squaremeal.co.uk

Old Mary's, Bayswater

'Have you heard of a Bayswater bar called "Old Marys?"' asks a colleague. I have not. The name conjures up a last chance saloon for prune-skinned Paddington bears. That's not ' bear' as in MIchael Bond's creation, rather the grizzly clientele of The Old Quebec. Popular with gay bears, I visit from time to time for no other reason than its ossified punters make me look like Justin Bieber's younger bro' by comparison. (Such morale boosters are important now that I have reached an age where policeman do indeed 'look like children,' as my father long ago predicted they one day would.) 'Old Mary's'  (singular), as it happens, is a new space in a handsome old Young’s house, The Mitre Tavern. Its website reckons it's 'a speakeasy.' I disagree. But these days, isn't that the boast of just about any bar that offers any drink more complicated  than whisky and Coke? When I drop by on a Saturday evening, the place technically qualifies as a speak easy: I don't need to shout to make myself heard - another constant irritation once one's age exceeds their chest measurement - above its handful of (seemingly straight) customers. Whatever ambience there is in this semi-deserted flagstone floored cellar feels more Charles I than Chicago 1931. Apt, given the pile's spooky back story. Said to haunt the Mitre, the eponymous Mary was a Jacobean scullery maid who embarked on an upstairs-downstairs fling that ended in a bloodbath. When M'Lady discovered M'Lord Craven giving the Maidenhead - as the custom was known in Mary's native Berkshire - she plunged a knife into the hired help's hussy heart. Cue Bloody Mary on a list of drinks that also has mai tai, espresso martini and Aperol spritz (£8.25), draught ale from Meantime and Camden, and a selection of bottled craft beers. Franks and chilli dogs are also available: easy for any passing gummy old Marys to masticate, I imagine.  

 24 Craven Terrace W2 3QH 7262 5240 www.mitrelancastergate.com/ 

adapted from a review for www.squaremeal.co.uk

Blitz, Covent Garden (Now CLOSED)

(We could be Heroes: the original BLITZ)

Wait long enough - until uninterested staff quit gossiping among themselves  -  and a lucky lad might eventually cop a French Kiss. That’s a cognac, lime and champagne cocktail. But at this new Covent Garden bar/ restaurant/ nightclub, it might equally imply locking lips with a customer - hopefully, not herpes-prone Hervé from Le Havre. Haunting the same street as a statue of Oscar Wilde in repose, this site’s previous occupant, Kudos, was wowing lavenders back when Gina G was still in the charts. Fast forward two decades: as go-go boys gyrate  downstairs, the small dance floor rocks to commercial and hard house spun by current star boystown DJs such as Brent Nichols and Paul Heron. Sadly, the new decor seems Oooh Aah...Just a Little Bit stuck in the same decade as Gina and her camp contemporaries: gauche red and black punctuated by unintentionally hilarious ‘art’ of uncommon ugliness? Not quite Right Said Fred! Woo Woo, Kee-Wee and Blue Lagoon - postmodern irony or more evidence of a troubled time-warped mind at large? - cost £7.95, less on happy hour until 8pm or... 7pm depending on which chalk board you believe. (We'd have asked, but didn't think it polite to interrupt two staffers smoking and chatting outside)  Challenging house red wine causes my chum’s lips to pucker... and not in anticipation of a snog from any horny admirer. Tables are set for dinner. Soup of the day ('with bread'!); chicken breast, new potatoes and greens; ice cream or sorbet: I'm thinking boarding school dinners circa Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. Around the same time as Oscar-winner Meryl's study material was starting out as PM, another Covent Garden dive was being feted as the planet’s hippest nightclub. In their  floppy fringes and frilly blouses, Norf London fauxmosexuals, Spandau Ballet, were cutting long stories short on its stage, while its lippy hat check girl, Boy George, hung up coats and dreamed of the big time.  Those were the original Blitz kids, the seminal club, the brainchild of new romantic movement doyen, Steve Strange. Fast forward to 2012, and it's a case of Fade to Gay... mediocrity at its new namesake. 

10 Adelaide Street WC2 7240 1818 www.blitzbar.co.uk

Pigalle Club, St James's : Pembroke, Earl's Court

The Pigalle Club is an ideal night cap spot: make mine a Manhattan, the perfect poison for a bijou venue straight out of 1957 Sinatra flick, Pal Joey. I swung by recently to catch an intimate gig by an on-form Boy George; the old queen upbeat despite facing a stretch at the current Queen’s pleasure, after an escort claimed the singer handcuffed him to a wall. In his heyday, George could have found countless volunteers at The Coleherne, a sleazy Earl’s Court joint. Reborn as The Coleherne Arms, new owners Realpubs - The Old Dairy, Crouch Hill and The Oxford, Kentish Town - are aiming this once notorious pit at the kind of punter whose idea of ‘heavy leather scene’ involves matching sofas from Heals. All muddy browns, chintzy wallpaper and braised pork belly, it’s as good as gastro gets in newly gay bar-free SW5.  A kitchen replaces the dark, cruisy loos where I witnessed a furry ‘hetero’ Hollywood hearthrob beg to have his nipples near twisted off by a sinister chap in chaps. Over a bottle or two of Tempranillo, we observe bemused Tom Of Finland clones strut in, their out-of-date Spartacus guide having given them a bum steer. (Update) So much clear blue does the pub want to put between it and its gay heritage, the Evening Standard recently reported that an employee took its owners to the cleaners at a tribunal on grounds of sexual discrimination. So if the pound you are about to spend is pink, think! Tonight, a blizzard of flashbulbs alerts us to the Heir and the Spare’s arrival at the adjacent Troubadour gallery. ‘Oi, Wills! Tell that old Queen not to send Georgie Boy down tomorrow.’It's a plea that will fall on deaf juggy Windsor ears.

The Pigalle Club 215 Piccadilly W1 7644 1420

The Pembroke, 261 Old Brompton Rd SW5 7373 8337 

Image: http://impiousdigest.com

Profile, Soho

To paraphrase the old Hi-NRG track, so many bars, so little time; that’s why I’m just getting around to Profile, the Soho haunt that quit its original site - now Pendulum - in summer for what was previously Italian restaurant Spiga. House muzak of the type that impels disco dollies to rip their shirts off blares out but Profile's barmen - pumped up to Tom of Finland proportions in accordance with some EU diktat that all gay men spend 53% of their life at the gym and that 42% of their body surface be surrendered to cyan ink tattoos - contrive not to shed theirs. The room - a glossy Stingray-style vision in jet and shades of lemon meringue pie boasts an oval bar, swivel stools and squishy booths. It looks ace and £6.50 cocktails, lad lagers and American diner nosh - with egg white omelette for mincey queens - are on target. So why, on a Thursday evening, when other bars are rammed, are there just fifteen punters? According to sweet bar manager, it jumps at weekends when downstairs dance bar Lo-Profile operates, but mid-week, ‘gay men don’t need to go out pulling anymore.’ The irony of his observation is that Profile is owned by cruising website, Gaydar. A victim of its own success? Muscle in for mojitos and stop online trawling-for-trade killing it at London’s sexiest boybar.

Profile, 84-86 Wardour Street London W1 7734 3444