Mark's Bar at Selfridges, Marble Arch

(the height of vulgarity - NOT spotted at Selfridges) 

Selfridges sale: the entire population of Beijing appears to have invaded Oxford Street. Denied Western goods for decades, demob-happy ex-Commies are piling through the store's doors, besieging the women's shoe department where, bewitched by bling, lil' Shanghai Lils are frantically cramming their sweaty trotters into metallic bejewelled high heels so irredeemably vulgar and ostentatious, even a two-bit Vegas porno star would think twice about being filmed in them while a Mexican one-armed bandit plays her slot machine. The scene is repeated in the men's shoe department where will.i.am wannabes and Rylan Clark lookalikes pounce on Jimmy Choos and Louboutins so ugly, I'd rather wear canary yellow Crocs, quite frankly. Fortunately, less foul footwear is also available - Selfridges caters for people of taste too. Caught up in the febrile feeding frenzy, I soon find myself accidentally shelling out on a pair of low-key luxe loafers that, even at 50 percent off, cost more than a month in India, where I could have these lush Hush Puppies copied in 50 shades of gay at ten bob a pop. Thankfully - not to mention cynically? - London’s littlest cocktail bar has been introduced next to the world’s largest and most dangerous men’s shoe department. After you've downed a stiff one, blowing your wad on Tom Ford (not my fantasy to be clear) is a temptation. Designed, art deco stylee, by Lee Broom and operated by Mark Hix, the bijou bar takes up about one hundreth of the floor space allocated chez stiletto-crazy heirhead Paris Hilton to her walk-in repository for puke-awful pumps - as raided by Sofia Coppola's (clearly blind) Bling Ring. The bar is scheduled to pop-up in other areas of the store, but for now, head to Level 1 for the likes of muddy wellie, Somerset cider brandy-based idea West Country winklepicker, and Hix kix (Morello cherry and eau de vie topped with Nyetimber), as well as smoked salmon on soda bread (£5.50) and coronation chicken ‘slipper’ from a range of well-heeled snacks.

1st Floor Selfridges, 400 Oxford St W1A 1AB 

See here http://www.leebroom.com/interiors/mark-s-bar-selfridges/

Ruski's Tavern, Kensington

The first time I visited Russia, it was still part of the dreaded Soviet Union. Head-to-toe in my Yohji/ Comme cod-Stalin comrade look that cost more than a red army of grain-harvesting Volgograd gummy grannies would earn in a lifetime, how I pitied the stern-faced matrons jostling 10-deep, hell-bent on securing the latest (only) thing to hit the shelves that week at Moscow's appalling State-owned department storeski GUM -  ludicrously expensive, revolting crude red lippy that any self-respecting 6-year-old London fashionista who found such a joke item attached, free, to a kiddies magazine at WH Smith would jettison pronto. The only other items for sale were gas stoves, toothpicks, rat-traps and nasty Nylon Romanian track suits in vilest vanilla and mauve hoops. Nowadays, it's Russian nouveaux riches' turn to pity Brit paupers, packing out Primark while they drop thousands on Vuitton, Versace, Gucci and Louboutin - yet somehow contrive to still look like Red Square hookers circa Letter To Brezhnev. Will homesick Russians dig Ruski's Tavern, new in Kensington opposite Embassy Row? Who knows? But for anyone who fancies a life of caviar and chips washed down with 6 litre bottles of Cristal that, at £25,950, cost more than a brand new BMW 120i ES Coupé (or a terraced house in Burnley - twinned with Chernobyl), this mock Cold War-era Muscovite bar/ club pastiche with its daft cosmonaut 'art' is the place to hang out. It's opposite, and run by two escapees from, that other themed posho playground, the hilariously tacky Bodo's Schloss; a Heidi Hi I secretly enjoyed (see http://tinyurl.com/mx64oa2 ) For the price of a Red Army, or Kremlin, cocktail (a tenner), perhaps you can reel in the sort of jammy basturt that can afford to keep you in the manner to which you want to become accustomed. Hedge fund Hugos; Made In Chelsea chumps; junior oligarchs; Monaco and Marbs-trash; football club owners et al.
1 Kensington High Street  W8 5NP 3747 6919 http://www.ruskis.com

Bassoon at The Corinthia Hotel, Charing Cross

Unless you’re an oligarch’s spoilt brat or one of TOWIE's more cash-than-dash dumbos - in which case, you won’t really get the understated sophistication of Bassoon at the Corinthia - there’s a price point for cocktails above which sensible souls will not venture. When I was an apprentice lounge lizard, that ceiling was a shilling; a princely sum that secured a port and lemon and a bag of scratchings back when the Queen’s tongue-tied old man was still on the throne. Fast forward to 2011, and I’m the one left stuttering at The King’s Speech: at nigh-on twenty knicker, this champagne and Chambord fix costs a king’s ransom. It’s all relative, of course: my stylish arm candy is delighted with her Mantovani - a Hendrick’s-based concoction named after the band leader who played here in its 1930s heyday as The Metropole before providing the ethereal soundtrack to countless cremetoria. Were she paying (seamless service and candied/ savoury snacks included, or not): ‘what berk blows £16.88 on a drink?’  This, from Lola in twice-worn Louboutin spikes whose £695 cost would stock my drinks cabinet for a year. Check out Bassoon by all means - David Collins’s classy pastiche of an ambience feutrée Parisian piano lounge circa Léger - but be prepared to punish the plastic or pimp yourself out for the price of its Gimlet.

Corinthia Hotel, Whitehall Place, SW1A 2BD 7930 8181

http://www.corinthia.com/en/London/home/