Turntable, Holborn

Studio!!! 

Sazeracs and old soul sounds: Turntable should be up my street. BITD when I used to DJ, nipping off to New York on Friday and returning to London on the Sunday night red-eye from JFK with a suitcase full of pre-release 12-inch discs was a monthly routine. I'm thinking of taking to the decks again: like the Valentine Brothers say, Money's Too Tight To Mention (he says, before HMRC gets any ideas ) and at various hip launches where the client has coughed up serious dough and booked a rare groover - as opposed to some celebrity's brat offspring/ precocious 'model', paid £10K just to press 'play' on an iPad  - I frequently find myself thinking "'Useless'" (Kym Mazelle) and how my record collection is stuffed with way better "Stuff Like That" (Quincy Jones ft Chaka)  So, I'm keen to visit this new vinyl-only DJ bar whose playlist is collated by Jazzi Q of Soul II Soul, big in the 90s. The sort of tracks I'm hearing - Phyllis Hyman, Linda Clifford, Gwen Guthrie, Cheryl Lynn, Shalamar, and a sprinkling of Motown - are guaranteed floor-fillers so It's A Shame (as The Detroit Spinners sang it)  that I don't want to "do a little dance, Get Down Tonight". Clearly, I've picked the wrong evening; it's not exactly heaving like Paradise Garage in its prime or about to wrest the disco crown from Studio 54. Maybe there's a secret door to a VIP lounge where Liza, Jerry, Bianca, Andy, Calvin, Halston, Grace, Divine and the gang are partying like it's 1979? Named after classic soul cuts of that decade, Turntable's street level bar's £8 cocktails  - Jungle Boogie (rum, Mandarine Napoléon and kumquat) and Ain’t No Sunshine (Aperol, grapefruit, rosé wine and blood orange)... but no Evelyn 'Champagne' King cocktail - are fair enough but the austere, claustrophobic, downstairs dance bar is way too (Barry) white; stark and boxy, unlike the late great growler's loin-locking smoochers, it's neither sexy nor Chic -  more joyless Norwich nightclub circa Joy Division tonight. Will I come back and order South Asian street food staples - Malay chicken, hot and sour fish, or lentil and aubergine curry -  to eat to the beat? Tempus fugit! I'm off home to mix Manhattans, Boogie Oogie Oogie round my sitting room, and hatch my big comeback plan.

7 - 9 Norwich Street EC4A 1EJ 7112 9179  http://www.turntable.london

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

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

Cecil's, London Bridge

The only problem with vintage clobber, is when one is of a certain vintage oneself. Dragging up as one of the Village People when you wore the entire construction worker kit and caboodle to disco down to YNCA at Studio 54 must be a depressing reminder of how quickly tempus fugit...I can but imagine. If you're sufficiently senior to have dressed, first time around,  in duds à la Downton Abbey or The Great Gatsby - the recommended attire for spiffing Saturday night shindigs at new cocktail lounge/ thé dansant Cecil's - good on ya for still being out on the razz' at your age, you sly centenarian (and-then-some) swinger!  Cecil's inhabits a crepuscular candlelit basement in an old dockside building where teas, fresh off clippers from the Orient, were once stored; hence, the World of Suzie Wong, cheaply but effectively implied, in its stagey makeover. As I wait at the bar for opium tears to materialise - a tart gin sour - I half expect a taxi dancer (a 1930's euphemism for a tart, the calling of girl-gone-wrong, Suzie Wong) to pop up and proposition me. But at around a tenner a pop for yuzu shu fizz, slings, Collinses, and ideas such as the Paris of the East,  Cecil's is no cheap clip joint - whatever hooch served in enamel mugs might sugest. Midweek, there's live jazz and soul and stand-up comedy and the space is fun. So rally the gang, old chap, and head down to Cecil's warehouse party events such as Chop Chop Club - 'a journey through international disco and other genres from 1930's Shanghai to the future and back' -  decked out in your best Cecil Gee; another label considered 'vintage' now that the famous clothier has disappeared from our high streets. 

8 Holyrood Street SE1 2EL 7403 8293 http://www.cecilslondon.com

The Punch Room and The Bar at Berners Tavern , Fitzrovia

'We have a nightclub too,' says a chap who introduces himself as the Edition London's 'human traffic manager,' conjuring up all sorts of disturbing images. He promptly sets about trafficking us to the basement of Ian Schrager's new project, a reboot of the old Berners Street Hotel. There was a time when any mention of  Schrager would have had me peeing my pants - assuming I'd been wearing any under vintage 501s, which nobody did, back in my youth. Call me blasé, but no nightclub will ever compare to Schrager's right-place-right-people-right-decade temple to hedonism, Studio 54. The Box? Cirque le Soir? Not.Even.Close. Nowadays, sadly, I'm less interested in what the DJ is playing (funky soul I actually recognise, since you ask), more intrigued by the club's acoustic glass; a product so effective, it totally isolates all bump and thump. In any other area of Edition London, no one can hear you scream "Le Freak, c'est Chic!" Trafficked back upstairs, we investigate the hotel's buzzy lobby bar and the bar at Berners Tavern (pictured). A handsome beast set in a vast baroque ballroom, it suggests a grand brasserie on les grands boulevards de Paree. Well-meaning but sluggish service allows us time to contemplate walls hung with acres of artworks that are, by turns, cool and edgy, or so howlingly naff they might be a job lot liberated from the railings of Kensington Gardens last Sunday. Drinks - similar to what you'll find at Berners Tavern's executive chef Jason Atherton's Blind Pig bar in Soho - get equally mixed reviews. Absolutely smashing (a cider brandy and peach liqueur cup) absolutely is but, served in a metal julep cup, corn on the cobbler (whiskey, orange Curacao, Oloroso sherry and sweetcorn syrup) could be iced Lemsip. When I discover there's a Vogue party going on in a more intimate bar off the lobby (VIP room whore, moi?), I abandon plans to sample Tanqueray-based Dill or No Dill and a fix called Mead Myself and Aye - ludicrously noncey libations no bloke who is serious about his image should be caught dead with. By the time we locate The Punch Room, the Vogue birds have flown the coop. The connoisseur’s choice, this chic, fumed oak-panelled hush bar is almost Calvinist in its simplicity (that's Calvin as in 16th century Proddy, but it could equally be as in Schrager's old pal, Mr Klein). The vibe reminds me of an airport VIP lounge (And no, I haven't always flown scum class, you cheeky git!) 

Killer cups to share include Oxford sherbet punch laced with autumnal dark spirits; and a silky, clear milk number that borrows from American barkeep legend Jerry Thomas’s original 19th century recipe (combining arrack, Somerset cider, cognac, rum, green tea, lemon, pineapple and spices). Service is seamless as you'd expect of any gaff run by Davide Segat, formerly at The Bulgari. Embarrasingly, at first, I do not recognise him despite having met him several times. No offence signor; I'm notoriously rubbish when it comes to faces. I'm the numpty, after all, who, as a precocious child at Schrager's 54, asked someone vaguely familiar if she was the hat check girl at a West Village bar I had been to a couple of nights previously. 'No, honey' said Miss Donna Summer, smiling sweetly. London Edition? Oo--oooo-oooh, I Feel Love!

London Edition Hotel, 10 Berners Street, W1T 3LF 7781 0000 http://edition-hotels.marriott.com/london

Disco, Soho Part 2

Whenever I hear its unmistakable opening bars, Van McCoy's 70's classic The Hustle still thrills me to the core.  The Whispers; The Chi-Lites; George McRae; Teddy Pendergrass; The Hues Corporation: such was the diet of a 4-to-the-floor fan kid in his bedroom, dreaming of strutting far-off Manhattan's seemingly unattainable light-up dance floors. It was a fantasy that would presently come true, however. Clocking the bold slogan I'd had printed in white on a black t-shirt,  Steve Rubell, co-owner of the world's most notorious night club... EVER, spots this precocious wee Scot, not yet legally old enough to drink,  chancing his luck at the Big Apple’s most hard to crash door.  picking me out from among the clamouring hordes of hopefuls in their thousands at his venue’s besieged portals, he beckons me to come forward "FUCK STUDIO 54?" - for such was the message of my gamble in  reverse psychology - "You got some nerve, kid!’ Fearing the worst, the cocky kid is quaking inside, all yellow Jello in 501 jeans. After what seemed like at least a decade…..he smiles and pulls back the velvet rope that separates mere mortals from disco heaven. "Welcome to Studio 54. Enjoy!" says God, handing me a 54-embossed lifetime VIP membership for my chutzpah; this, to the utter incredulity of my hard-bitten Manhattan leather queen roomie who had warned such impudence would see us both permanently banished to Brooklyn or some other bridge and tunnel hell. Fast forward to 2013. If - as Charlie  Gilkes just has  - you are going to open a London club that aims to recreate NYC's glory days (i.e circa Shalamar), expect me to be your pickiest critic. Accomplished international Hustler; DJ; Fire Island tea dance fixture:  DISCO is in my DNA. Well, perhaps not quite all things. What was consumed in 54's inner sanctum, vintage Dom P aside, never really interested me.  Fly Robin Fly by Silver Convention, not a silver spoon at my nose, was all I needed to get high. But as I head towards the party Charlie (ironic name for a nightclub owner, no?) is throwing for DISCO Soho's launch, I am coming over all queer - and not in a YMCA way. You See The Trouble With Me (as big old Bazza White sang it) is the hash brown I ate at a party I attended earlier was exactly what it said on the tin and its key ingredient’s woozy warpy ways  are kicking in. And not in a good way. As fake hair-flicky drag queens camp it up and DISCO's waiters in gold shorts and muscle vests take to the floor for their well-choreographed routine to The Fatback Band's Bus Stop,  I'm becoming increasingly claustrophobic, panicked by flashbacks. Fraying around the edges, I am beginning to Freak, and not in a Chic way. How come? Because DISCO, entered via a mocked-up door to a Pan-Am 747, feels Mighty Real (RIP Sylvester). Not up there with 54 of course, but it could be a dive in downtown Hoboken circa Boogie Ooogie Oogie. What's really upsetting me though, is a mural in the style of Keith Haring - imagery that I will forever associate with New York in those dark days when the perma-party turned to carnage. Suddenly, they are all back in the room. Warren; Steve; Angel; Karl; Calvin; Lloyd: gym buff blokes in their prime turned overnight into sarcoma-riddled, zombie-eyed cadavers as the Big A felled 50% of my disco buds. Add to this, a worrying-looking go-go dancer that, in my current altered state, I take to be a short-arse London society queen with her head stuck inside a glitter ball. "Wow! Is that really Fran Cutler?" I say. "Not with that body" quips catty person unknown. Or have I hallucinated that too? Sweaty, clammy, breathless,  I flee Gilkes's undoubtedly fine and fun vision of 1979 before I can critique DISCO's disco drinks - tequila sunrise, Harvey Wallbanger, blue lagoon. Based on his other venue's cocktails (Bunga Bunga, Maggie's Bart's), I imagine they are all perfectly acceptable. “ Take deep breaths and repeat ten times "I Will Survive" I say to myself as Gilke's PR leads me up towards fresh air and spirits me off to the relative sanity of his other new gaff, Mr. Fogg's (see next review). Music was always my party drug of choice. The same can’t be said of so many Studio54  regulars that have long since joined Steve Rubell, partying on at the greatest disco the skies have ever seen, no doubt.  

DISCO, 13 Kingly Court W1 7299 1222 http://disco-london.com

Disco, Soho

Do I really need to go to... DISCO?

What: a new nightclub from Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling - the brains behind Bunga Bunga and Maggie’s - disco promises ‘the glamour of Studio 54 and the atmosphere of Paradise Garage’ (I'll be the judge of that, mista!) with podium dancers and shirtless waiters in shiny tight shorts designed to show off their glitter-balls

Where: 13 Kingly Court, Soho. Twitter @DiscoSoho

When: from 28th June 

Pros: Ask the Hot Shot DJ for your fave Instant Replay, then get set to Jump To The Beat.  Do It Anyway You Wanna (Do It), and Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah! Yowsah! Yowsah!) at Funkytown’s latest Boogie Wonderland. Young Hearts Run Free, so after some (eye-to-eye) Contact, get ready to Get Down and Push Push (In The Bush) with those Bad Girls (toot, toot, yeh, beep, beep!!) 

Cons: none. A 70’s Disco Inferno? That’s The Way I Like It (uh-huh, uh-huh) and Shame Shame Shame, shame on you, if you can’t dance too! 

Go with: Gary’s Gang, Ms Grace, her Sister, Sledge, and Le Freak - coz He’s The Greatest Dancer.  

PS: bonus points to everyone that can identify who recorded all those big disco hits.
Here's one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5TlpUF2GGw

READ MY JULY 2013 REVIEW OF MY NIGHT AT DISCO here http://tinyurl.com/qfuqzdg

Disco Drinks

Currently, there’s a lot of love around for the era when John Travolta, in his flash white suit, gyrated to the Bee Gees; Sylvester made everyone feel mighty real; and cowboys, construction workers and cops encouraged young men to have fun at the YMCA. Party like it’s 1978 as Keith Barker-Main steps back to the disco decade

Drink these:

Kitsch cocktail Blue Lagoon (vodka, blue Curaçao and lemonade plus plastic mermaid/paper umbrella) was as big as Boney M back in the day. Black Russian (vodka and Kalhua), Piña Colada and Harvey Wallbanger were the toast of Studio 54, but the ultimate 70’s cocktail is exotic Californian import, Tequila Sunrise.

Make it:

To make Tequila Sunrise: pour 3 parts Patrón (or similar) and 6 parts orange juice over ice. Slowly add 1 part grenadine. It will sink to the bottom of the glass, creating the ‘sunrise’ effect. Garnish with The Eagles 1970’s track of the same name.

Disco down:

LONDON: Rollerdisco  www.rollerdisco.com

Nothing says ‘the 70s’ like a rollerdisco. Order Screwdriver (vodka and orange) and skate to I Will Survive and Young Hearts Run Free at this vibey Vauxhall club.

EDINBURGH: The Shack www.theshackedinburgh.co.uk

Book in with ten pals at a Rose Street boogie bar serving retro rinses and get a Barry White-sized ‘pizza banquet’ free on Fridays.

LIVERPOOL/ BIRMINGHAM/ NATIONWIDE: Flares www.barsandvenues.co.uk

The clue is in the name. Add platforms, sequin boob tube and feather boa for a F-ABBA night out at a chain where disco anthems are always in the mix. 

NEWCASTLE: Quilted Camel www.quiltedcamel.com

Le Freak, c’est chic! As are afro wigs and other fancy dress at this ‘retro 70s bar’ where it’s permanently party time.

Alternatively, throw a Saturday Night Fever party at home. Stream discos greatest hits via http://loudcity.com/stations/i-love-disco and get the gear here: http://tinyurl.com/b5hqzuw 

Original article appeared in Metro UK 28.2.13.

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!')