The Lexington, Islington

Despite being recently tarted-up and rouged - scarlet flock wallpaper, crystal chandeliers and steer head skulls  - this old dame still comes on like a saloon in a seen-better-days cathouse in its spiritual home - Lexington, Kentucky. At its long Rhett Butler-butch bar, choose from around 100 American ryes and small batch bourbons, many of them - George Dickel Barrel Select and Sazerac 20 for instance - rare. Whiskey-based cocktails such as Boulevardier and Red Rye, a Manhattan made with Fernet Branca, are fine at £7 but with Kentucky and the South the theme, I’d like to see the julep jump out in all its juicy variations. Otherwise, there's wine from £18, Goose Island and Anchor Steam and London crafties from the likes of Hammerton and Sambrook’s. New on a menu that includes mixed mezze, and 3 for £6 pile-em-high tacos, is a range of pies - jerk chicken and sweet potato; rabbit, bacon, mushroom and cider ; ‘vegan shepherd’s pie’ etc - served with mash. Even at full capacity, you can hear yourself speak in the main bar. ‘Screaming guitars and thumbing bass’, says the website, are restricted to the club room above; its programme aimed at musos more inclined to Iggy Pop than Simon Cowell-pop. 

96 - 98 Pentonville Road N1 9JB 837 5371www.thelexington.co.uk 

Dandelyan, South Bank

One of the most anticipated openings of Autumn 2014; that's Ryan Chetiyawardana's new gig at the Mondrian. His second bar (following White Lyan http://tinyurl.com/lmuheyf ) is at the London incarnation of the LA hotel that garners more column inches than many of the so-called celebs that squat it. Set in the old Sea Containers building, a sister to The Sanderson and The St.Martin's Lane hotels, this shiny new beau monde magnet aims to replicate the glamour of transatlantic liner travel of yore. No, not the one that sinks under the schmaltz of Leo and Kate's ludicrous love story, silly! Think the art deco glam of the SS Normandie as reinterpreted by designer Tom Dixon. To my eyes, this pile's public areas are also in danger of capsizing...under the weight of so much beaten copper, outsized sculptures and knowing objets d'art - the brand's signature look. This is how I imagine chez The Beckhams to look; the sort of glossy tosh ol' Space Hopper-arse Kim Kardashian - a couture-clad style vacuum who has somehow convinced hitherto famously fussy fashion folk that a krass kow should be FROW - might imagine to be the height of sophistication. There's some thought provoking stuff here, to be fair. Take, for example, a statement piece in the foyer that I christen "millionaire midget's sex swing". WHY? What might a ginormous tubular arrangement in Tinky Winky blue be? A teaching model for myopic medical students hoping to find the cure for Teletubby IBS? My date, meanwhile, ponders "Matalan mound"; velours scatter cushions heaped in one corner as at a Swansea swingers party (she claims). The studiedly casual lobby staff are a study in what not to wear. Presumably sponsored by West End theatres guests might like to visit, the guys are got up as extras from Grease, the girls from Glee. Despite a dull back bar that would not look out of place in a Holiday Inn Express (in Hull), Ryan's room, with its stunning Thames-by-night backdrop, is more my bag. Again, art deco-inspired, it's all drapey-loungey luxe in damped down brights. I'm getting Jerry Hall in Halston shimmying to Love Is The Drug at Le Jardin - 'the' New York nightclub pre-Studio 54. God knows which big girl's blouse wrote Ryan's menu notes. Next time, ask me, petal! Just because his inspiration is early 20th century botanists and fruit hunters, do we really need flowery fart such as 'seasonal field guides lead you on a journey of spirit experimentation and taste amalgamation'? Fortunately, the drinks are a whole heap better than this botany bollocks. Try divine Dandelyan sour (pictured); 'concrete' Sazerac or Southbank (Bacardi Heritage Edition rum, lemon verbena, lemon, grapefruit and honey bitters, and pink salt soda). Made with botanical beer 'vermouth', Rittenhouse rye and bitters, Evil Manhattan (£12.50) is responsible for tomorrow's evil hangover. It's testament to Ryan's recipes that I get rinsed on at least ten at his launch; my screaming face ultimately more Munch than Mondrian.
Mondrian Hotel, 20 Upper Ground, SE1 9PD 82345 9523

The Fable, Holborn. Rextail, Mayfair

(Park up at Rextail's bar) 

If Simon Cowell did bars, I imagine they’d be like Drake and Morgan’s. As slickly styled and packaged as One Direction, their latest shiny pleasure-dome, a sister to City behemoths The Folly and The Drift, will doubtless have the X Factor for a too-cool-for-Tiger Tiger crowd. For them, £9 mouth-tingler Marys and skinny mojitos and the chance to snog Prince Charming - a rum bugger from a list of ‘fairytale’ cocktails. If that sounds like your bag, book a table at The Fable immediately. 

No disrespect to D&M, who have clearly nailed a winning format, but it isn’t necessarily mine. This explains how after a record-quick in-out reccie, I find myself washing up at Rextail en route to plan B, one of my time-honoured fall-backs, The American Bar (at the Stafford, not The Savoy which I'm less keen on post-refit). On my 'to-do' list at number 45, or thereabouts, Rextail is Arkady Novikov’s Mayfair cantina for the kind of Saint Tropez tanned (as in, acquired there not from a SW3 pharmacy) Boxtoxy blondes whose blokes’ valet-parked wheels come with Monagasque or Dubai number plates. Like the Fable, Rextail isn't my natural habitat either. Pristine pair of Tod’s taupe suede loafers - tonight’s  footwear - notwithstanding, I'm not exactly Mr Monte Carlo material. Martinis, however, are very much my bag, and Rextail's Sardinian head honcho Paolo Farris’s babies pass would pass muster on any Sunseker yacht moored in the marina at some South of France multi-millionaire's playground, I imagine. Try his a Knob Creek bourbon take on a classic hanky panky, or a Scared gin, lavender and sage martini - his off-menu bespoke suggestion that hits my G-spot. (That’s ‘G’ as in gin: even Dyno-Rod couldn’t hit the other one, in my case, these days). I'm told the high maintenance blondes are apparently big on Paolo's summer berry, cachaca, Chambord, and Chardonnay cooler, Brazilian garden - maybe because it sounds like something they’d have done at a spa? Will Rextail be my new regular midday perch? At £15 plus a pop for a Sipsmith Cherry Herring negroni? Negative. In Mayfair, even a liquid-only lunch calls for Syco-deep pockets. 

(Fable's 'little touches - of which many!)

The Fable, 52 Holborn Viaduct EC1A 2FD  www.thefablebar.co.uk 

Rextail, 13 Albemarle Street W1S 4HJ www.rextail.co.uk 

London Cocktail Club, Oxford Circus

With owner JJ Goodman's London Cocktail Clubs 1 and 2 firing on all cylinders in Goodge Street and on Shaftesbury Avenue, opening numero tres in a basement just off Oxford Circus makes commercial sense. After all, who doesn't need a stiff drink, shell-shocked after the cacophonous assault course that is Topshop where, last year, I spotted some Comme des Garçons tribute brogues I fancied. "Them (sic) shoes are the nutz, mate. What size is he after?" pipes up a pipe-cleaner styled as Harry Styles, motioning towards the entirely unrelated 18-year-old hovering beside me. Clearly, I am of an age when I should be shod exclusively by advertisers in the back pages Daily Express magazine. Next up, Comfi-Fit leisure slacks with elasticated waistband? I doubt the desirable chaussures I took a shine to were the work of Topshop heiress Chloe Green -  designer of towering infernal heels as drooled over by acrylic blonde Romanian pole dancers and midget tea-bag tanned slappers from Stoke. Next time Chloe pops in to ogle the shekels rolling into her inheritance's tills, she'd do well to fall into LCC3, located just across the street from Daddy's flagship schmutter emporium, afterwards. Garish, trashy, graffitied Chicano gangsta's crib; why, this dark dive bar could be in Miami or South Central LA. Or, indeed, East Harlem, once home to J-Lo's Latino salsa star ex hubby, Marc Antony- currently, lil' Chlo's beau. (Is it just me, or is this unlikely pairing up there with Simon Cowell and whatever his American babymother's name is in terms of "REALLY?") What she'll find, is a raucous rock'n'roll party pit, its fit-for-fun-lovin'-criminals rinses mixed by badass brutes that come on like wild-eyed Hells Angels but are probably called Clive and Colin, and take in stray kittens at the Cockfostersbungalow they still share with Mumsy. LCC3 is big on tequila - try a seriously hot-tempered chilli sling - as well as wacky LCC signatures such as squid ink sour or pineapple and cheese martini. Hungry? Feed your face chilli squid with margarita dip, hush puppies, and ‘Snoopy Doggy Dog’ from a range of franks in buns. Next up for Goodman, launching in 2014, is LCC 4 in Shoreditch - a hood that, to Chloe and her Made In Chelsea ilk (or in her case Made In Hampstead Garden Suburb, I imagine) - is as edgy as it gets. 

4 Gt Portland St. W1 7580 1960 

www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk

"potofgold" shoe and more like it are available from 

www.cjg.com/collection/‎