MNKY HSE, Mayfair

For a taste of the Mayfair lifestyle at a fraction of the cost, book a space in the bar in the bowels of MNKY HSE (BYO vowels) -  a ‘new breed of dining experience’ that heroes modern Latin American cuisine. Set to a FNKY MNKY soundtrack that gets a lot lot louder as the evening progresses, this  glossy gaff recalls the sort of early Noughties NYC nightspot Naomi Campbell, trailing paparazzi in her wake, might have plagued while the Sex and the City ladies, mainlining martinis, held a wake for yet another failed relationship. Dress as Naomi or Carrie's mucker Samantha's MUCH younger sisters; MNKY HSE is a catwalk already strutted by 'porn heiress' India Rose James; Pips Taylor; Weegee wailer Talia Storm; Kyle De Vole (Rita Ora's stylist, apparently); Henry Conway (a party fixture dubbed "Mince Charming" by a sometime mate of mine) and male mannequin Harvey Newton-Hadyon - the sort of fluttery young things drawn, as moths to a Vapona Strip, to Mayfair boîtes such as this. Model muddles and mixes on a South of the Border tip include a coffee martini - made, Jalisco-style, with Jaral de Berrio Mezcal, mole bitters, dark chocolate and rose dust - and a fine £13 passion fruit spume-layered Negroni manqué that calls for Mezcal Gin Joven. Ron Millonario XO Reserva Especial fix, MNKY Business (top left) - a subtle, smoky rum old fashioned - is flamboyantly produced from a glass flask shrouded in mist and much hot air from its maker about “the concept.” Another signature is called Taking The Pisco: cue Ace of Spades Gold Brut Champagne, for those (rappers, footballers, hedgies, pretentious pricks) happy to drop £850 a bottle or £1,450 on a magnum of bling-bauble bubbles. For those with more sense than money, house (Argentine) white is yours for more modest £26. Baltic blondes with Rylan Clark glow-in-the-dark teeth -  veneereal disease is sweeping London - will be relieved: tasty, teeny taco-ettes and fiddly fishy bites won’t interfere with the contours of a body-con black dress... but they may batter a bloke's Barclaycard. 

10 Dover Street W1S 4LQ 3870 4880 www.mnky-hse.com

El Nivel, Covent Garden

 (Easy Rider!)

Mezcal is having a moment in London's better bars. Deservedly so. It may still be a niche product in the UK today, but long ago and far away, tequila's sexy sister had me from hello. On a wild night south of El Paso, we first locked lips in a backstreet bodega. What drew the 20-year-old me to Mistress Mezcal was her ability to render me para' without the usual loss of speech, use of limbs and the inevitable chucking-out time up-chuck shame. Hers was a more subtle, cerebral high; comfortably numb, as if shot full of peyote, quaaludes and stardust to a damped-down trippy soundtrack of Santana, The Doors, Hendrix, Curtis Mayfield,  America's A Horse With No Name and a dose of dirty dancing salsa. Like the best burlesque artistes, mezcal sheds her layers slowly, reeling you in, intriguing, tantalising and, ultimately, leaving you begging for more. If your experience of mezcal is of the worm-infested acid touted by tacky tramps in stetsons variety, get yourself an education at El Nivel, a pared-down 30's Latino-style bar, lurking, unannounced, behind what looks like a cupboard door to the left of the entrance to La Perla restaurant. Named after the Mexico City cantina wherein renegades Che Guevara and Castro conspired, la Perla (an upscale departure from its Café Pacifico group siblings' format) aims to revolutionise attitudes to Mexico's oft-maligned national spirits - mezcal and tequila. Collated by the Café Pacific head honcho/ Jack Kerouac manqué, Tomas Estes (pictured) - an authority on all things agave (see http://fortequilalovers.com/tomas-estes/ ) - they are served here with top notch antojitos, or "little cravings" as the the collective noun for Mexican street food translates. Purists sip theirs neat, but mezcal is magic in cocktails too. Ease yourself in with La Poderosa (Vida mezcal, agave nectar, lime, cardamom and lavender bitters and fizz). Follow that with a mezcal fix made with QuiQuiRiQui, roasted pineapple syrup, lime, Cynar and saltwater spray - smokey, complex and rewarding at £9. Now, you're ready to go all the way, naked. See? You're hooked! When it comes to mainlining mezcal, like Curtis sang it, "I'm your pusherman." http://tinyurl.com/aq5lk54

26 Maiden Lane WC2E 7JS 7240 7400 http://www.cafepacifico-laperla.com 

Qui Qui Ri Qui, Hoxton (Now CLOSED)

I'm not happy. It's chucking it down. I'm out East, and I'm being dissed by a lump of lard parked up in his fart-filled white van. 'Oi darling, ' he sneers, perving over my Glamazonian blonde date, 6ft tall in this season's Marc Jacobs heels and hot pants. 'What you doing with a fat old bastard like 'im, when you could 'ave me' - not to mention the chlamydia, crack habit, spent Stella cans, takeaway containers and skid-marked rancid baby-batter-stained Primark trackie bottoms strewn on the floor of a fetid pit on BNP Avenue E29 that accompany his gracious offer? His type, and the waaaaay scarier wankers who held me up there at knifepoint, aeons ago, are why I largely avoid Hackney Road by night. I have also largely avoided mescal since I holed-up in Mexico - shaking, sobbing and quasi-sectionable - after over-enthusiastic youthful experimentation with tequila’s turbo-charged sister convinced me I was being stalked by a giant sombrero-wearing Technicolor killer banana called Hector. (Me, paranoid... much?) Tonight, I’m back in mescal's clutches...in Hackney Road...in a louche David Lynch-esque basement, its walls plastered with brash 1960s Mexican cartoon porn depicting pneumatic bimbos pursued by ’El Afeitador’ (the shaver) ‘de Pubis’ (guess!). What could possibly go wrong? Ominious as it seems on paper, this sexy/sleazy (legal) late-late-night shebeen - located beneath a kebab shop, for added glamour - is all good. The rare spirits sold at London’s first dedicated mezcaleria, QuiQuiRiQui - that’s cock-a-doodle-do in Spanish to you - really are worth crowing about. After £8 Mescal Negroni and Pink Taco cocktails, mine (Danish) hippy host - who is happily ‘living the mescal lifestyle, man’ - introduces me to the hard stuff. Subtle Santa Domingo Albarradas - all pear drops, pepper, chilli and turmeric notes - for example, would hold its own against many a malt whisky. As, at £10.95 per double, it bloody well should. Presently, Mistress Mescal’s magical fuzzy buzz kicks in, so too does a familiar track, and I'm rendered Comfortably Numb. Have I really spotted Jake Shears dressed as a Day of the Dead skeleton by the tiny bar, or am I hallucinating again? Hackney Road: guaranteed walk on the wild side

184 Hackney Road E2 7QLhttp://quiquiriqui.co.uk/

Duck and Waffle, City

Insomniacs with an interest in molecular mixology, apply within. Long after other watering holes have closed, Duck and Waffle’s lights (and creative cocktail-shakers) remain switched on, forty floors above the slumbering City below. Whether it’s for a wee small hours one-for-the-road Monkey Shoulder Whisky Sour (with rosemary and truffle foam), a G and T ponced up with rose petal and yuzu spume, or a bespoke breakfast Bloody Mary, D and W’s inside-out bar - think Garfunkel’s salad bar geared to adventurous drinkers with the £13 price of Dark and Stormy ‘bottled and bagged’ Bowery bum-style for modern-day Marie-Antoinettes’ amusement - is a fun, if slightly pretentious experience. Open 24/7 - although no hard liquor is available between 3 am and 8am  - its ‘iconoclastic’ cocktails are often prepared using unexpected ingredients: Sarson’s malt vinegar in your margarita? Why didn't I think of that? Staff, happy to waffle on about their ‘craft’, will not duck out of a challenge to ‘make mine a Mescal and Marmite martini, garçon!’ But like Marmite, opinion is split 50/50 on some of the smoke and mirrors mixology the date and I sampled:  A blow-torched barrel stave provided the smoke, lots of it, for a house Manhattan adjudged ‘complex and interesting’ or ‘like being at a party and accidentally drinking bourbon from the glass into which someone dropped a cigarette butt.’ Either way, you’ll find plenty to entertain you until the sun comes up. 

Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate EC2N 4AY 3640 7310 www.duckandwaffle.com 

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