The Whip, Mayfair

("Whip it! Whip it good.") 

The theme at this new cocktail spot above The Running Horse, a handsome Georgian tavern in Mayfair, is the Kentucky Derby circa that State’s most famous racehorse, Seabiscuit. Yes, I do know Seabiscuit never ran in America's most prestigious race: having once correctly answered 19 out of 20 pub quiz questions about horse races - much to the incredulity of Frank Skinner and Jonathon Ross on an opposing team - I'm a bit of a gee-gee fancier - and not in a Catherine The Great kind of way. A past relationship with a native Kentuckian also left me with a taste for the South's signature drink, the julep - as sipped by Scarlett O'Hara, if not Rhett Butler, a straight whiskey fan and a man after my own heart who was prone to declare 'I'm very drunk and I intend on getting still drunker before this evening's over.' Of the seven advertised juleps here - whipped up by Peaky Blinder bartenders and served, comme il faut, through strainers in pewter cups - the bookies’ favourite is rye and raspberry. The rhubarb vodka version is a good each-way bet, but I'm not about to stake £10 stake on gin julep. Having had a sip of my mate's, I conclude it's lame. TBH I'd rather snog Clare Balding - not that she'd be up for it, I imagine. If your two lips don't do juleps, there's sours, fizzes, flips slings and tings built on a savvily edited range of premium spirits that includes citrussexy Navy Strength gin, Perry’s Tot. The Whip - like the Running Horse below, since autumn 2013 - is owned by James Chase of Chase Distillery and  Dominic Jacobs, a former bar director at Sketch. In a slow week for launches, it's my favourite newbie and although it's early doors, expect to find yourself jockeying for position at its bar by Grand National day.  
The Running Horse, 50 Davies Street, W1K 5JE 7493 1275 http://www.therunninghorselondon.co.uk

Union Street Cafe Bar : Southwark

'Gordon would like to personally invite you and a guest to celebrate the opening of Union Street café' (note the oh-so quirky lower case 'c'). This sounds ominous. I fear if I show up at Ramsay's latest launch (given my often barbed comments about the world's greatest living chefebrity that stretch back to my first less-than-ideal experience at Aubergine, some 20 years ago) I'll be toast - as in skewered, basted, griddled and served up on it as an amuse-bouche. Compounding matters, the guest I invite claims to have once had a run-in with he who bestrides continents, rescuing other people's Mickey Mouse catering establishments, when he's not in his whites, effin' and cheffin' in one of his own successes. This could be hashtag-awkward as they say. Fortunately, the downstairs bar at USc is overseen by a friendly face - perennially chipper chappy, Abdulai Kpekawa (pictured), lately of the lovely Luggage Room (see http://tinyurl.com/mbwujoq) next door to el Gordo's not-particularly amazing Maze bar. If things turn nasty and knives (Gordon Ramsay by Royal Doulton, available online) fly, I'll use him as a human shield. In mitigation, may I say, I have already visited USc's bar ahead of tonight's official launch stramash and, to paraphrase Big Sweary himself, thought, ''F*** me! Here's one of his gaffs I'm finally able to enthuse about' (if not now hang out in, on the grounds I have likely just got myself barred for my cheek). Cocktails, from £8.50, include sophisticated calls Camino de Agricultores (cognac, Pedro Ximinez, chocolate bitters and lemon juice), and the Duke Meets the Queen (a Rinquinquin, Gewürtztraminer, white grappa, and porter syrup Collins). But before you make a mental note to try 'em, please also note that the list is to be changed weekly, I'm told. On past form, for Kepkawa, who also did a stint at ECC, that will be a doddle. The room, a post-nuclear concrete bunker, has been gussied up by Russell Sage Studio  in one of those overnight miracles performed on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares to universal adoration, I like to imagine. The style is postmodern London loft lite: deep sofas for slouchy posing, large leather ottoman stools reminiscent of an SM club's ahem, workbenches (I'm told), and the sort of graffiti/ urban wall-hangings that a first year art student at Kingston or Epsom would be proud of. Innovative? Hmm. But it hangs together well and, for the sort of awed rubberneckers drawn to Ramsay's joints, it will no doubt represent the height of urban cool. So, does Ramsay rip off my cojones when I show up at the party? His mate Jonathon Ross in tow, the great man strides in, as megastars do, hours late for his own gig, and is instantly swamped by beaming hem-touchers. He turns his head. I wince. He looks straight through me. 'Personally invited?' Gordon clearly doesn't know me from a gourd. Let's keep it that way, eh?    
Union Street Cafe, 47 -51 Great Suffolk Street SE1 0BS 7592 7997