Jailbird, Kentish Town

Set in the bowels of its new Kentish Town branch, Joe’s Southern Kitchen's bar ‘makes the most of its history as a police station’s cells.’ A bare, bland, boring, blood-red, windowless box; hatch bar aside, ugly, backlit swing doors, the room's main feature; tinny-sounding 80s hairbrush diva pop instead of the promised Northern soul, blues and rockabilly: you reckon, guys? One staff member claims they ‘are working on the decor.’ Hmm. Work also needs to be done on a cocktail list that our perplexed waitress admits is “very girly.” Judging by joyless jam jar serve Maple Pie (Jim Beam Maple, lemon, apple juice and ‘apple pie syrup’), cloyingly sweet julep, Kentucky Cousin, and an £8.50 Bulleit ‘Bullish Negroni’ that left us distinctly bearish, the girl that inspired it is sad-arse Southern twerker, Miley Cyrus. Picklebacks, Brooklyn lager and £5 margaritas may keep some boys happy but this boy can't help thinking this soulless pit is no improvement on poitin-serving Irish speakeasy Shebeen, Jailbird's predecessor. We pass on wings, hot dogs, mac’n’cheese and pulled pork bun on the basis that the popcorn shrimp we do order has somehow morphed into chewy Chinese-style fish balls by the time it reaches us. "That is how popcorn shrimp should be" imagines our server. Yeh, and my name's Aileen Wournos! Before my inner serial killer is unleashed, we bust loose: a night in a real slammer could be no worse than my brief incarceration at Jailbird...so long as a bent bobby slipped me a bottle of JB, a bacon butty and a cashmere blanket. 

300 Kentish Town Road NW5 

http://joessouthernkitchen.co.uk/kentish-town/

Knowhere Special, Kentish Town

(Above: back in the day when you picked up METRO for its restaurant, bar and arts reviews - i.e. last week

 - before the bean-counters' baffling brand-threatening decision to cull quality freelance contributors )

One little corner of Kentish Town, or K-Town as it's known locally, just got a lot more interesting. Grab a speck, asparagus, mozzarella and parmesan thin-crust at Pizza East then head over the road for late night tonsil lubing at this handy new hole in the ground. Think of it as a destination bar BOGOF as shexy Shebeen gets a new next door neighbour. If you know where - behind an unmarked door to the right of a caff called Mamma Mia, you'll find special. Do I dig it? I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do; for here's the sort of bonkers indie booze bunker London does so well. Clothes hung out to dry overfly a narrow corridor papered in lurid oriental wallpaper so wanky, you imagine Widow Twankey's Chinese laundry within. Push on downstairs and, beyond a fabric curtain, discover a 15 by 15 squeeze with converted coal holes of, part of a bonkers booze basement tricked out like Josef Fritzl's cellar as imagined by Coronation Street harpie Vera Duckworth. Cocktails, despite daft titles such as get me a bourbon, I’m hungry (toasted pistachio-infused bourbon, Cherry Heering, vermouth and chocolate bitters) are on the money at ten plus one of your English pound coins. "Eleven quid?" you gasp? True, K-Town ain't Kensington, no matter how the man in the Foxton's Mini might spin it, but the uptown price does include all manner of odd snacks such as salmon pancakes with smoked vodka sour, bear with me honey. TBH, I'd rather get rinsed on the classics, sans gimmicks, at £6.50 than be taken to the cleaners for the sake of the toffee apple and salted chocolate caramels that come with friar’s luck (home-spiced rum, Benedictine, yellow Chartreuse, burnt orange and frankincense). Either way, this dinky dive is, indeed, Special K. 

296 Kentish Town Road NW5 2TG facebook.com/knowherespecial  

For more London bar reviews visit  www.squaremeal.co.uk 

Shebeen, Kentish Town

Shebeens were clandestine drinking premises where illicit whiskey was flogged to cloth capped Paddys in the Emerald Isle of yore. From there, the phenomenon spread first to Scotland, then to the USA and South Africa. Populated by loose-limbed, dope-head West Indians (and their white English posh girl admirers), shebeens became a fixture of Notting Hill in the 1950s. Fast forward 60-odd years and a legal tribute to the species has turned up in London NW5, the latest addition to this popular local Brit/Med bistro. In a downstairs dive that looks like a cross between a 20s speakeasy and a 70s Northern working man’s club, pimped hooch includes a range of classic cocktails at £6.50 (or 241 on 5.30 pm - 7.30 pm happy hour each night). Pile into the ‘snug’ ‘nook’ or ‘cranny’ - former police holding cells - and try Singapore Sling, Elderberry Collins, Mai Tai English Julep and Dark and Stormy - the dark rum and ginger beer mule popularised by Jamaicans in London circa The Profumo Affair (Christine Keeler and Lucky Gordon hung out in a shebeen that is now the venue for Tom Conran's Chamucos Clubhouse in Westbourne Park). Authentic Irish poitin - once banned due to its high alcoholic content - adds a frisson of excitement and there's beer from local lads, Camden Town Brewery. 

Kentish Canteen 300 Kentish Town Rd NW5 2TG 7485 7331 http://kentishcanteen.co.uk

read more reviews like this at www.squaremeal.co.uk

Tapping The Admiral, Kentish Town

From the same team at The Pineapple, preserved after regulars including Rufus Sewell, Ken Stott and newsreader Jon Snow told developers where to stick their bulldozers, comes sister pub Tapping The Admiral. It's another good pub for the community-minded burghers of Kentish Town to savour. At first approach, you might suspect a local pub for local people in the same sinister sense as Tubbs and Edward’s gothic emporioum in The League of Gentlemen. Straying strangers are most welcome to try out the precious things within, CAMRA-accredited real ales. Choose from Butt’s, Redemption, Brodie’s and real perry such as Gwynt y Ddraig Two Trees (£3). As at The Pineapple, the food is Thai : try various tom yum from £3.50, noodle dishes from £6.50 and chicken, pork or beef or tofu phat kra phao stir fry and curries at £7.45. ‘Tapping the admiral’ is not a local euphemism in the same vein as 'bashing the bishop': they'll brook no wankers here. The phrase actually refers to old tars who would sneak a cheeky tot of brandy friom the barrel in which Nelson’s corpse was embalmed for the long sea voyage home after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar.  

77 Castle Road NW1 7267 6118 www.tappingtheadmiral.co.uk

The Flowerpot, Kentish Town (CLOSED)

Reviewing bars, I get to visit all sorts. From the sublime - The Connaught whose twenty quid killer martinis I'd never have afforded as a student, to The Flowerpot in Kentish Town whose £2 Sambuca shots, I could have, had I ever actually wanted to. On balance, even back in those impecunious days, I’d probably have elected to neck neat turps with the local bums than frequent what is essentially a retread of grungy, junior muso joint, Bullet. Bleach? Mr Muscle? Whatever they swab the place down with, it smells like a spotty-rashy, trainer-trashy, teenage oik’s pit. Fragrant date winces and demands we leave - immediately! Made of sterner stuff, I insist on at least one drink - industrial strength cider. Suddenly, I’m all nostalgic for patchouli oil, Pot Noodle, Che Guevara posters, lava lamps, Hendrix and that other student bedsit sine qua non, the liberated rubber traffic cone. We park up on shonky, wipe-down banquette that’s in danger of self-destructing whenever either of us moves. The alternative is a grubby armchair, its foam guts spewing out like some fat sleb's during liposuction. The mere prospect of it sets me off on a different (bad) nostalgia trip: the night I caught crabs down Dover docks way. Behind the bar, skinny-jean Flowerpot man (more of a little weed) chomps cheesy crisps and scratches his armpits. Nice one petal!  On-stage, tonight’s ’free live music’, Natalie Macool, wails like a bereaved wifey at an Irish wake. Suddenly, I hate my job.

147 Kentish Town Rd NW1 7485 6040 http://flowerpotlondon.com