Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings, Clerkenwell

Two Fitzrovia bars to the good, the owners of Bourne & Hollingsworth and Reverend J.Simpson have added a bigger, more ambitious, third off Exmouth Market. Like Derry and Toms, and Swan and Edgar, Bourne and Hollingsworth was originally the name of one of London's many double-barrelled department stores that in the latter's case, was on its last legs around the same period as this bar's mismatched skip-refugee furniture was fashionable: the mid-1970s. BHB is done out like the sort of Surrey wine bar one of that decade's great TV fixtures might have hung out in with her Rotary Club cronies, sipping Cherry Heering and sneering about a neighbour's ghastly common baby blue Ford Capri. That's no bad thing: The Good Life's Margo Leadbetter's style is bang on the current fashion zeitgeist. There's much else to like here; not least a handsome sit-up, cocktail bar, a chintzy Homebase pot plant-heavy conservatory/ dining area and floorboards painted light-bouncing white, always flattering to the sort of London bar flies whose complexions are a touch Gak Wan. The opening party cocktails we are served are fair-to-girly: port flower stinger; cider rose (apple and blackberry shrub stirred with cider brandy, charged with prosecco). Blokier stuff to try next time - for, unlike some recent lame launches I've attended, there will be a next time -  includes rum and plum (Santa Theresa 1796, prune vermouth and bitters). A posh pubby menu that has mint crusted cannon of lamb with ratatouille (not exactly 1970s pricing at £20), and Caribbean pork belly, sweet potato puree and plantain beignets bears investigation. The bar snacks we try are hit and miss: crispy bacon and potato maki rolls with horseradish cream strange, but strangely addictive; red bell pepper and thyme cake, whatever!; coronation chicken wrap with avocado relish the sort of outré buffet one-upmanship your aunt in Esher might have once served to a soundtrack of Demis Roussos.  
42 Northampton Road EC1R 0HU 3174 1156 www.bandhgroup.com/buildings/

The Bingham, Richmond

We are having what passes, in the rest of Europe, as 'a normal summer'. As 30º+ day follows  30º+ day, how package holiday oiks'  haemmorhoid-red hungover faces must rage as they contemplate The Sun in not-so-sunny Santa Maria di Horrea: "I told you we shouldav stuck wiv effin' Pontins in Prestatyn, Leigh-Anne." But for all London's upmarket spots' fancy air-con systems, the Lovin' Spoonful's line - 'cool town, evening in the city; dressing so fine and looking pretty' doesn't resonate with me when a Summer in the City evening involves the furnace that is the Tube and conditions that would not be tolerated by the EU were the Central Line conveying swines to slaughter not peeps to St. Paul's.  Endure the District Line travelling in the opposite direction, however, and in 30 minutes, you're in bucolic Richmond. All breathable air and languid lawns, here's a world away from sweltering West End streets. Richmond is the sort of gilded time-warp town where you might reasonably expect to bump into 70s TV fixture Margo Leadbetter, looking pristine in Aquascutum, terrorising slovenly boutique assistants, and drinking G and Ts with a bridge club crony. Margo and her ilk, present-day stockbrokers' wives and ladies who lunch, will love The Bingham. Removed from the perma-thronged, rumbustious,  riverfront bars of central Richmond, this elegant, genteel Georgian hotel made over in Homes and Garden designery moderne epitomises The Good Life, Home Counties-style. Who wouldn't dig a glorious English walled garden and high-ceilinged handsome lounge bar? A summer breeze wafts in through French windows overlooking chocolate box-perfection -  a sun-dappled stretch of the Thames whose coots and moorhens are only occasionally disturbed by bronzed Oxbridge Aryan brawn propelling fast-moving rowing boats. We're offered cooling Singapore slings, elegant Bellinis, fig martini, pisco sour, negroni, summer punch and the sort of food bowls you get at the sort of wedding receptions, the Bingham's stock-in-trade, Hugh Grant's screen character Charles was perpetually late for. I'd forgotten about the place, but The Bingham's lawn beats any crowded London bier-garten, hands down. My previous visit, for dinner, some 7 years ago, is a total blur until the Bingham's owner reminds me my date,  restaurant reviewer Marina O'Loughlin, described the place as "all fur coat and no knickers." Ooops! 'Hashtag (slightly) awkward', as they say. Not that Margo would have any truck with a spiky wee Glaswegian wifey abroad.
61 - 53 Petersham Road, Richmond, Surrey 8940 0902  http://www.thebingham.co.uk