Canvas, Shoreditch

“We are cocktails and art" proclaims new DJ-lates bar Canvas, hoping to explain what sets it apart from the herd. Let's see: "Whether it's through paint, print, interior design, or even our cocktail menu created by Jumbles St. Pierre, everyone and everything in Canvas laments (sic) the importance of passion, art and creativity within our unique and ground-breaking concept." By the look of the art on Canvas's blank canvas tonight, I'm not sure the acquisitive Mr. Jopling will in the  long-term lament not opening his cheque book to its young creators. There again, I'm more  Corot and Courbet than White Cube contemporary; so WTF do I know? What I can spot, is a decent cocktail. And what Jumbles St. Pierre (oh how I love a good Jackie Collins' read) has come up with is more persuasive than rough and ready decor that lies somewhere between Warhol's Factory and a Wild West saloon; Canvas's barmen in black, more Milky Bar Kid than Johnny Cash. Three to try, are dark diplomat (a chocolate-orange twisted 'Diplomatico rum Manhattan’), banana cabana (if you're sweet on sweet), and Wild Turkey and Frangelico, fruit-flavaoured slug, wild angel. Canvas sits midway between Hoxton Square and the lurid late-night chicken cottages of Old Street Roundabout. If the area's pallid peculiars are to adopt Canvas, its 'greeters' will have their work cut out, repelling repellant boozed-up oiks looking for the grotty cheap pub it replaces and visitations from plagues of Hummer-borne Billericay Fake Bake Biancas out on Saturday's rapacious razzle. However tasty ‘upcyled’ (sic) Patrón Silver, mango and lime, chilli-frosted punch, this weary old banging DJ bar-avoider would rather drop £12 at nice Nightjar, Loves Company or Happiness Forgets around the corner. 
235 Old Street EC1V 9HE 7336 0275 www.canvasbar.co.uk

City Social, The City

Room with a view: Jason's latest gaff's cocktails come with a Gherkin garnish.

Spikey-top chefebrity Gary Rhodes once cooked breakfast of bacon and chipolatas for me at Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carole's Bankside loft. Before you jump to any erroneous conclusion ("exactly how pissed were you the night before?"), let me stress that I was there on a (very) slow news day, snouting for a scoop at a PR bash to launch some initiative by a pork-pimping bureau called Ladies In Pigs to which I'd been invited. Initially, I'd misread the event as 'Pigs in Ladies ' - a title that conjured up a tacky 50 Shades of Grey-style porno flick wherein various pot ugly footballer lookalikes - one, a Scouser with a penchant for grannies on the game - would 'pleasure' posh old birds. Also present at this surreal meal? Tory/ indie/ UKIP battle-axe Christine Hamilton. Point being, whilst I found old bangers Christine and Carole mildly entertaining in a kind of la-di-da Loose Women way, Gary appeared to have all the synthetic charm of one of the Ladies' see-through sausage skins. The bar at his Rhodes 24 restaurant at Tower 42 in the CIty always struck me in much the same way. 'Meh' to the max. Chef du jour Jason Atherton has never cooked breakfast for me - it can only be a matter of time - but he strikes me as an altogether more interesting sort. So too, his new sky lounge where once stood Gary's gaffe (sic). More sophisticated, more stylish, slicker, less frenetic or gimmicky than other Square Mile get-high-in-the-sky opportunities - hello Heron Tower! - City Social is a blue-chip banker. The busy room - think Wall Street boardroom pre-the '29 Crash - has a bullish confidence about it. It's like 2008 never happened. The views are an obvious draw but best go at sundown; butch brown-on-brown Art Deco-styling, and London below, both look better by night as - moving away from some unfortunate downlighting - do I in Atherton's otherwise seductively-lit space. Order bar snacks - boqueronnes, crab and avocado salad, or goat’s cheese churros with truffle honey - or more substantial dishes off the restaurant menu, also served in the bar. Innovative cocktails include It’s the British whey (brown butter-washed Johnnie Walker Black, PG Tips syrup, split milk whey, bitters, lemon juice and nutmeg, £11.50) - a fine example of why London's stock is riding high. The root of all evil, they say, is money and you'll do well to shell out yours on a walnut rum, Bramley apple syrup, poire William and root beer cooler of that ilk. I'm more circumspect about City Social's resident booze brokers' hot tip, tolero; worried that a Tapatio blanco, Tabasco, piquillo pepper and apricot brandy firecracker might leave me whistling Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire, confined in City Social's comfy, comely khazi.

Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street EC2N 1HQ http://www.jasonatherton.co.uk/restaurants/city-social/ 

Joe's Bar, Covent Garden

(Sue the bastard!)

Covent Garden Piazza? AVOID! AVOID! Too many resting actors playing living statues, dead-eyed tourists in sawn-off shorts and Union flag velvet jester hats from its shite souvenir shacks. No tables at Balthazar? Whatever! And as for my initial samplings at Shake Shack and Five Guys, I'm burgered if I'll by queuing up any time...ever. For a fiver more, I'd rather shag Hawksmoor Seven Dials' buns (http://tinyurl.com/p6jypt7). Away from the fray, Joe's - a dive bar that should not be confused with the Joe Allen, to which I am forever drawn for nostalgic reasons (I held  my 21st birthday B-List party there) - is worth a butcher's at the thinly disguised reboot of what was formerly Navajo Joe's on rapidly improving King Street. Set to a pre-Motown r’n’b soundtrack, lit brothel-red, this Tabasco-tone joint comes on like a downbeat off-Route 66 dive circa early Mad Men. Rocking rum and bourbon rinses spell danger for dipso Don Drapers de nos jours. Try red or dead or 1 night in jail, the sort of butch bastards I imagine Johnny Cash downing in one before knocking ten bells out of the man that called him "Sue." (re-live that pearl at  http://tinyurl.com/5crveq ) With an impressive range of range over 100 suave agaves to choose from, tequila cocktails are worth making out with. I'm halfway through smokin’ sazerac-alike, Mexican put-down,  shooting the breeze with the bar's mile-a-minute Scouse-mouth manager, when tonight's sidekick, Mr. Attention-Span-of-a-Gnat, demands that I drink up and we take the evening on to Rules. Now if ever there is a reason to hit Covent G, Rules is it (earlier love letter here: http://tinyurl.com/p6d6fql ) but as with other bars Joe's reminds me of - Slim Jim's and Aces and Eights for example - I'd have been perfectly happy to linger here. Looks like I'll have to negotiate the Garden's freaky fruits again 'ere long.

34 King Street WC2E 8JD 7240 4008 www.joessouthernkitchen.co.uk 

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