Cahoots, Soho

Duncan Stirling and Charlie Gilkes do love a theme bar. The pair owns Made In Chelsea magnets such as Bunga Bunga (bottom-pincher-plagued cheesy Neapolitan 1950s pizza parlour), Bart's (Val de Sloane Square après-ski chalet shindig) and Mr. Fogg's (Victorian voyager's Mayfair town 'hice' or tweedy 30s-throwback MP Jacob Rees-Mogg's gaff, I can never quite decide). Their latest wheeze replaces what was the no-less heavily staged DISCO (Cahoots' self-explanatory 70s-style predecessor, sadly, nowhere near as dangerously debauched as Studio 54, as this tearaway teen remembers it). So convincing is the mise-en-scène that is the venue's entrance - flagged up by a sign that says "To The Trains", accessed via a wooden escalator that leads to a ticket office manned by the first of various period-piece extras straight out of Foyle's War - foreign tourists are convinced Kingly Court Station is actually part of the London Underground network. If it were a station, it would be on the Party Line; for here's a morale-boosting knees-up in a full-blown recreation of a Tube station (complete with old Bakerloo line carriage) circa Biggin Hill and Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs Of Dover. Van-loads of vintage props set the scene and, when I drop in, some game birds have gaily entered into the spirit by dressing in 40s mufti, presumably in the hope of attracting a GI who will cover them with Hershey's kisses, shower them with cologne, Helena Rubenstein rouge and Nylons and whisk them away from bombed-out London to a lovely new life as a Housewife of New Jersey. My gimlet eyes, of course, see this barmy bunker for the charade it is. Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Stirling? In wartime Blighty, you'd be lucky to find Camp coffee - as in sickly sweet ersatz alternative, not espresso served by some queer bugger debarred from service lest he become the barrack-room bike. Here, you're on for cracking classic and contemporary cocktails billed as 'starlets and sirens' and 'wide-boys and good-time girls, all served - neat touch! - with free rations of ham and pickle cut-up sarnies in army issue tins. What's more, the two brooding Continental chaps charged with martini-making would certainly not be employed behind Cahoots' bar, rather charged and slung behind a POW camp's bars; "Wops" - "Italians" to you - being shamefully allied to those spiffingly attired but thoroughly beastly Nazis back in 1941. Any internment in this camp caper is no hardship, what with decent drinks and jitterbugging to Glenn Miller's In The Mood with hunky Hank from Hoboken NJ to keep you amused. Welcome to The Blitz... if not quite as the late lamented Steve Strange imagined it! 
13 Kingly Court W1B 5PW www.facebook.com/cahootslondon

Don't Be A Dance-floor Donut: The Rules

How embarrassing! Breezing up to a nightclub door, you’re knocked back. Where did you go wrong? Maybe you broke THE RULES. Check out my essential disco dos and don'ts here http://tinyurl.com/bzr6292

(pictured: Studio 54 -the man in the moon's golden rule? 'Let it snow!')

Blitz, Covent Garden (Now CLOSED)

(We could be Heroes: the original BLITZ)

Wait long enough - until uninterested staff quit gossiping among themselves  -  and a lucky lad might eventually cop a French Kiss. That’s a cognac, lime and champagne cocktail. But at this new Covent Garden bar/ restaurant/ nightclub, it might equally imply locking lips with a customer - hopefully, not herpes-prone Hervé from Le Havre. Haunting the same street as a statue of Oscar Wilde in repose, this site’s previous occupant, Kudos, was wowing lavenders back when Gina G was still in the charts. Fast forward two decades: as go-go boys gyrate  downstairs, the small dance floor rocks to commercial and hard house spun by current star boystown DJs such as Brent Nichols and Paul Heron. Sadly, the new decor seems Oooh Aah...Just a Little Bit stuck in the same decade as Gina and her camp contemporaries: gauche red and black punctuated by unintentionally hilarious ‘art’ of uncommon ugliness? Not quite Right Said Fred! Woo Woo, Kee-Wee and Blue Lagoon - postmodern irony or more evidence of a troubled time-warped mind at large? - cost £7.95, less on happy hour until 8pm or... 7pm depending on which chalk board you believe. (We'd have asked, but didn't think it polite to interrupt two staffers smoking and chatting outside)  Challenging house red wine causes my chum’s lips to pucker... and not in anticipation of a snog from any horny admirer. Tables are set for dinner. Soup of the day ('with bread'!); chicken breast, new potatoes and greens; ice cream or sorbet: I'm thinking boarding school dinners circa Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. Around the same time as Oscar-winner Meryl's study material was starting out as PM, another Covent Garden dive was being feted as the planet’s hippest nightclub. In their  floppy fringes and frilly blouses, Norf London fauxmosexuals, Spandau Ballet, were cutting long stories short on its stage, while its lippy hat check girl, Boy George, hung up coats and dreamed of the big time.  Those were the original Blitz kids, the seminal club, the brainchild of new romantic movement doyen, Steve Strange. Fast forward to 2012, and it's a case of Fade to Gay... mediocrity at its new namesake. 

10 Adelaide Street WC2 7240 1818 www.blitzbar.co.uk