Fox Bar, Brixton

This new Brixton booze bunker is in Piano House, a creative hub in a converted Victorian warehouse. I remember this dive from my one previous visit when it was Substation South, owned by Erik Yu (Opium/ Burlock/ 68 and Boston). With my fashion show producers hat on, I'd hired its DJ, Martin Confusion, to develop a trip-hop soundtrack for a client - Katharine Hamnett, if my memory serves me well. What I do distinctly remember was rocking up at the club to discuss ideas, only to find his gig was a raunchy gay uniform night. Not much was achieved: well, you try concentrating, surrounded by 'squaddies' in the noddy, hard at it on manoeuvres that are far from Geneva conventional! Having been totally transformed (and doused in bleach, I trust), the sometime sex-pit now hosts Soho House’s latest whizz; a drinking den inspired by the old taverns of Chicago, in which city the same group’s original Fox Bar is based on traditional English taverns, I'm told. Confused? Here’s the 411. Fox Bar sits in a narrow arch next door to a branch of Soho House’s Chicken Shop roll-out. There’s barely room for thirty souls in what feels like a sanitised take on the sort of joint Frankie Machine - the fly by night hero of Chicago novelist Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm - might have drunk at with his dissolute buds before graduating to injecting his veins with something a little stronger than Banana Penicillin, one of the drinks on a list worked up by Soho House’s global creative bar manager, Tom Kerr. Other classy £8 fixes (pun intended) that might have been less detrimental to Frankie’s health than his class A intake include Old Pal (a Rittenhouse rye Negroni), Southside Collins, Boulevardier and Nitro (espresso) Martini, the latter two on tap. Chuck in chicken bits and craft beers; Brixton’s baddest will be quickly hooked.

Piano House, 9 Brighton Terrace SW9 8DJ Facebook Fox-Bar-Brixton

The Chelsea Pensioner, Chelsea

Technically speaking, I live in Chelsea. To all you incredulous East Londoners, here's 'WHY?!!!' 1. Hard to believe now, but once upon a time, King's Road was the Dalston de ses jours 2. Unlike Poplar or Peckham, an explicit condition of residency is that you take a minimum of two showers daily... using products not available in Poundland. 3. Surrounding myself with Made In Chelsea's (fragrant) heirheads and chinless chumps, as opposed to Homerton hipsters, allows me to perpetuate the self-delusion that I'm still 18 and edgy. Technically speaking, I am also now grown closer to getting my free bus pass than to passing out, pished, after free love upstairs on a night bus. Some aspects of my wasted youth, I REALLY do miss. So, just a short stagger away from my now ludicrously unattainable nano-pad, bought for buttons back in the day at a price that would not secure a Clapton closet in today's febrile hyper-inflated market ( #pension #poolinprovence #funded #smugbastard), The Chelsea Pensioner has my name on it. Once The Black Bull pub, like so many other locals, it too seemed destined to end up as a Metro/ Local/ Little Waitrose flogging truffle oil, beluga, Bollinger and all life's other necessities to the filthy rich foodies that have overrun my manor. Opened by the stylish cove who owns Simmons, King's Cross and Camden cocktail lounges, a neon sign in its window promises “cold beer and a warm heart” - the latter, a rare find in mercenary SW3/5/7/10 these days. If the Royal Hospital's red-coated old soldiers' mobility scooters manage to propel them to the Royal Borough’s western boundary,  they’ll find jokey, retro, pick’n’mix decor, Meantime and Camden on tap, Prosecco at £15, Rob Roy and daiquiri cocktails, flatbread pizzas, a pool table, a cute patio yard and, quite possibly, yours truly propping up the bar, reminiscing about Chelsea's golden age when home-grown punks and peacocks, not minted Muscovite trash and Euro hedge funders' frosty-faced salon-blonde bitches, paraded its main drag.

358 Fulham Road SW10 9UU http://www.thechelseapensioner.co.uk

Bermondsey Arts Centre, Bermondsey

Cottaging: Joe Orton was a fan. George Michael too, splashed all over the news, busted for waving his Whammer, sent to the slammer and fined $500 when the pretty police observed him 'engaged in a lewd act' in an LA loo. But why any wanker would hang out on the off-chance of servicing Banker Billy's willy in a water closet, before the pinstripe closet heads home to the wife and kids in Croydon (ahem) beats me. Perhaps the idea of being picked up by the fuzz, the smell of industrial strength disinfectant and urine, and being shagged in a  stall in sixty seconds flat, free STD included, is too potent a thrill to resist? Deep in the bowels of Bermondsey, these former London lavs can, in future, expect to find me loitering with intent, long into the night. With great drinks and its on-the-money mix of art deco, Gotham City grunge and 50s local authority utilitarian, this film noir bar is unlikely to be a flash in the pan. The venue’s young owner, George Garnier - a St Martin’s fine art grad who now rents affordable work spaces to local artists - originally envisioned the space as a daytime caff/ social hub for his tenants. Research, however, indicated that what today’s budding Basquiat or Banksy most wants is not soup and a sarnie, but a cool place to chill until 2 a.m getting bladdered on recherché rinses: chrysanthemum (£10) and Colias (Stoli, saké and Licor 43) among them. Beers from The Kernel, Picpoul de Pinet (£25), French bubbles, share platters, renegade rock, raw retro soul, and occasional live unplugged sets are perfect for a new generation of underground cottage loafers. The only bummer is, in 2014, to spend a penny here (French 75 and as bog roll thrown in) you'll pay £9. But with drinks as good as half hardy (an El Dorado 8, basil and quince sour), Georgy Boy (Garnier, not Michael) ain't exactly taking the piss. 

102A Tower Bridge Road SE1 4TP www.bermondseyartsclub.co.uk

A version of this and my other reviews is at www.squaremeal.co.uk

Jam Tree, Fulham

At the private view of Proud Chelsea’s Sex, Drugstores and Rock & Roll: A History of the King’s Road, a bevy of demobed dolly birds and 60s faces now in their sixties are out in their finery. How fashion-fantastic that thoroughfare must have been in its patchouli-drenched Sergeant Pepper heyday. Nowadays, it’s a boulevard of bland, boring as a Boden-ed-up Belgian banker. By the bridge where Chelsea slums it with Fulham, there’s a new kid on the block, Olympia food pub The Jam Tree’s second branch. A big decked beer garden defies the sun not to shine from now until September and I like the main room’s funked-up new Britannia pose. A shortish wine list peddles quaffable stuff at under a score but upgrade to a zesty Picpoul de Pinet (£23.50), good with ‘colonial’ pub food: that’s Malaysian spicy noodle soup (laksi), Jamaican chicken curry (£12.50) and nasi goreng but not haggis unless they want their windows pushed through by outraged Bravehearts. The signature cocktail, (strawberry) Jam Mojito, is well enough executed but doesn’t improve on the classic recipe. On my second reccie, the crowd is a mix of Chelsea bland blondes and Chelseigh and her lairy Plan B lookalike mates from Fulham’s remaining ungentrified terraces. Stylish? In the 90s, this site housed Revolution, or at least that's what my brain cell thinks one of Jam Tree II's on-trend-for-a-nano-second predecessors was called. Sadly, King's Road's cool crown has long since slipped. The new owners should look to Haggerston or Deptford for Jam Tree III.

541 King's Road SW6 2EB 020 3397 3739 www.thejamtree.com