Caipirinha Bar at Cabana, Brixton

(one familiar face looks happy- Sandra from Gogglebox )

No sooner had the Champagne corks popped at midnight; 2016 began to shape up as an annus horribilis. "Serves you right for buying your Hogmanay fizz from The Co-Op, you cheapskate!" you snark. But at £16.99, or whatever its current offer price, Les Pionniers beats many a bigger Brut, I'll have you know. First upset: Michel Delpech, the French pop star that soundtracked my Blé En Herbe years, croaked his last. Next, the markets went into mega-meltdown mode; 'informed insider' punt on China as shonky as most everything those Asian a'holes mass produce; and then ..the unthinkable: BOWIE! Cue an emotional tsunami on a "Princess Di just died" scale; the slight difference being that Bowie's talent went far beyond rocking a frock and cleverly manipulating the media. Drawn or by coincidence; ostensibly to check out a new bar; I'm in Bowie's native Brixton, at the shrine to Ziggy (who'd surely scoff at such sentimentality) where a generation grieves the glue that held it together - the Thin White One's (truly) unique Sound and Vision. Can forty years really have passed - "sordid details following" - since this precocious show-off was excluded from prep school for showing up with a rainbow-died feather cut and a streaked face? My bronze shimmer, kingfisher blue and 'Flaming Flamingo" flash (courtesy of Miners and Rimmel from my sister's make-up bag) less The Prettiest Star, more a lad insane. The Golden Years - when I span the man at Boys Keep Swinging, a post-punk disco night I hosted at The Fridge, just yards from his makeshift memorial - dead and buried...or cremated, in his final brilliantly orchestrated act to prevent the mawkish media circus his funeral would have surely otherwise been. Tonight, I'll drown my Sorrow (his cover of The Merseys' hit, a personal favourite) and toast the Starman in caipirinhas in the Victorian bowels of Britain’s first purpose-built department store; the now-defunct  Bon Marché, the unlikely setting for a much needed blast of Brazilian sunshine in  sad SW9. At Cabana, surf boards as tables and Castrol oil drum as tub chairs - among the recycled furniture that benefits the poor of Brazil’s favelas - set the tropi-kitsch, beach bum scene for this mid-market chain’s standalone cocktail lounge. Here, the classic Rio cachaça cocktail comes in various fruity flavours along with Ipanema Iced Tea, boozy batidas, coladas and hurricanes such as Carmen Miranda and Red Parrot - juicy at £7.95 - and snacks of gloopy guacamole, salt and pepper squid, and crispy, melted cheese pastels. DJs spin electro-bossa and power samba and by 10pm, this Copacabana carnival is steaming. An excited girl is proudly showing off a selfie taken with Olly Murs. "Shame it wasn't Zayn!" sighs her friend. "Or Justin" adds another. In years to come, I imagine the girls will, like my chums, be just as inconsolable when the visionary, talented, truly original, not-at-all manufactured epoch-defining Messrs Malik and Bieber depart this mortal coil.

201 - 207 Ferndale Road SW9 8BE 7326 5760  https://cabana-brasil.com/restaurants/brixton/

Margaux, Earl's Court

English may no longer be the lingua franca in SW5. Other tongues nowadays increasingly dominate in Earl’s Court - which this address technically is, regardless of the Jo Hansford blonde estate agents' assurances that 'this is, like, super-prime South Ken, yah?' Thankfully, most resident Sloanes' French vocab runs to ‘encore du champagne, Chablis et Margaux old chap’ - all of which are available at this recently-opened dishy wee wine bar. Like the bulk of its clientele, the bar's well put-together wine list is a bon chic bon genre mix of French and Italians, with a smattering of New World and Eastern European interest. A 200-strong selection has Picpoul de Pinet, vieilles vignes Carignan, St. Chinian and Puglian Neprica all at either side of £30. Top drawer grapeage for hedge fund Henris, flush from a good week at le bureau include a 1999 Margaux at £750. A more accessible swallow from the same appellation appears at £8.50 among a range by the glass or carafe. For brunch, choose from a selection of eggy ideas - Benedict, Florentine, halloumi and heirloom tomato omelette (£11) - savoury tartines, and salad of salmon niçoise. Dishes for lunch or dinner might typically include foie gras and pear in a vanilla and port reduction en brioche (we'll brook no anti-Fortnum's bleatings here, you skanky sans culottes); porcini risotto (£13/ £18); sea bass ceviche; seared scallops with butternut squash and caramelised onion or boeuf bourgignon on creamy polenta. Over puds and Sauternes, play spot the Windsor: Harry, Wills and various court jesters cruise a strip that was also once home to Diana Spencer who resided at Coleherne Court. I blame the Versace-loving princess for the 'hood's slide from sedate Sloanedom towards something akin to Geneva-sur-Tamise. 

152 Old Brompton Road SW5 0BE 7373 5753 www.barmargaux.co.uk 

Kench and Bibesy, Smithfield

"'Kench' is a little-used term for a fish salting bin, as well as the olde English equivalent of that current online überacronym, LOL. 'Bibesy' is an archaic term for an excessive desire to drink." So says the owner of this new Smithfield gaff, a man whose Nottingham childhood must have been so uneventful, he can still recall every round of Call My Bluff. Mine host, the linguist Chris Peel, is keen to point out the thinking behind the name of his new dining room (Kench) and bar (Bibesy), lest I imagine it's in the same vein as his other premises. Chris, you see, is also the man behind cod-1920's Chicago Mobster's speakeasy Evans and Peel - a quirky hole-up that would doubtless be fun-lovin' Diana Spencer's local had she not kissed a Greco-German frog, become a princess, left her pad in Earl's Court for an even more louche Court, and died after the dream turned as sour as her sister-in-law Anne's equine fizog. Whether Diana, smudged panda eyed patron saint of TV confessionals, would have enjoyed Kench's modern Brit tapas, who can say? She was a finicky eater, one of her friends tells me. I enjoy K and B's..... in part. Pulled oxtail with red cabbage, and pork 'bellypops' are fair but chewy, flavourless, salt-cured flank steak tartare echoes Diana's demise: a car crash. Wotevah!  I'm feeling more bibsey boy than kenchy tonight, so it's the downstairs drinking den here that interests me more. As at Evans and Peel, part of the fun is divining its entrance. If you're not thick as a brick, you'll discover a rough-hewn pine-clad blue-collar cabin that has presumably been modelled on a shady Adirondacks shack circa Hank Williams - the sort of dive where rednecks drink doctored hooch and eye up their cousins' beavers after a day spent shootin' squirrels in the woods - Tufty taxidermy is a bit of a theme at Bibesy. From a back bar stacked high with premium spirits, Bibsey's cocktails are no hokey moonshine. Campari eggnog aside - an ill-advised experiment that tastes like the poo of a jaundiced alkie Milanese mama's breast-fed baby - the menu is packed with must-try stuff. Despite its crap name, Beyond Epale ('the bastard lovechild of a martinez and a presidente') is a winner. So too, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Bibesy's Kinky Boulevardier built on Calvados. The drinks keep coming faster than a horny hillbilly in a $10 parking lot whore. By the time I get to Redemption rye and Arran and Islay whisky-based Salt and Malt Sazerac, Hank Williams'  'I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive' is playing in my head. At one point, I swear  there's a mean squirrel on my shoulder and it's after my nuts - always a bad sign that you're one more drink away from a paramedic's intervention. It's testament to this luxe liquor pit's pull that I'm still here, howling for more, at 3 a.m on a school night. OK, I'll level. It helps that Peel lures us into a lock-in, the tab on him. As I, too, am keen to revive obscure old English words, let me add that if you can corrade the cost of an Oenological Manhattan (11 gold bits), freck hither, twitter-light, and deliciate at a brannigan within.
50 - 52 Long Lane EC1A 9EJ 7796 3631 www.kenchandbibesy.com

Evans And Peel, Earls Court

In a two-bit basement, in a dead-end street, in a no-hope neck of town (Earls Court), you'll find a pair of flimflams masquerading as gum-shoes. Tell ‘em Eddie Mars sent you. They’ll take care of you real nice. Welcome to the Raymond Chandler-esque twilight world of Evans and Peel. Here, beyond a cunningly concealed portal in the bogus private eyes’ dusty sepia tone office, lies a jumpin’ juke joint where - for those on the lam deemed kosher by the Big Cheese -  Shebas and Sheiks suck up hot hooch and hillbilly chow served on Clyde’s bonniest ol’ bone china. It’s a PR girl cliché, but for once ‘speakeasy’ really does sum up a clandestine parlour got up on a shoestring as a sleazy 1920’s Chicago gin-mill. Plied with £9.50 slugs, even a tough nut will sing like a canary after Auntie May’s Marmalade Bronx, Rum Runner (Diplomatico, sweet vermouth, Grand Marnier and coriander bitters) and half a dozen Sidecars. Bartenders are dressed up Sting-style; that's as in 1973 Redford and Newman flick, not pretentious Newcastle knob/ tantric twat, Sting: he works for the Police. Neat Prohibition era twists - ‘moonshine’ (Meantime ale) dispensed from a radiator and wine bottles concealed, Bowery bum-style, in paper bags - are fun film noir touches. So pull your glad rags on and get your gams down here pronto.  Historical fact: this swell caboodle - diagonally opposite the old apartment of a balled-up English royal who some say got bumped off by a torpedo (case closed, never proven) before she could become queen - was once a  dodgy dive where old queens queued to pay the rent: On which note, if you’re after a dick for hire, try E and P on for size. 
310C Earls Court Road SW5 9BA   

www.evansandpeel.com