Alpha Beta Bar, Finsbury

"SAS flight 1974 to Stockholm now boarding at (Moor)gate 1"

When he’s not tending at, and to, his other bars (White Lyan, Dandelyan, The Fount at Selfridges), esteemed champion of cerebral, experimental peculiars, Ryan Chetyawardana (aka “Mr. Lyan”), is likely to be found at the standalone bar at chef Anna Hansen’s Modern Pantry off Moorgate. Brightly lit, all Scandi-style blonde woods with pressed flora, pine cones and other forest-foraged finds masquerading as art, its peninsular bar’s stools the only seating, the room suggests a Nordic airport bar circa early ABBA. What Alpha Beta (the name sounds like one of the group’s songs but relates to the title of the building it inhabits) lacks in louche lounge lizard appeal, however, is compensated by Mr L’s high flying botanical-inspired fixes that harness spices and ingredients integral to Hansen’s cooking; the subtle kick of a dhansak masala minced veal-filled omelette a highlight of a menu of appealing, affordable bar snacks. Killer combos include mini brioche buns stacked with smoked mussel, crab and guacamole paired with Iranian Gimlet - both ideas flavoured with dried down Iranian lime;  and crab rarebit doughnut with squid ink and the same Urfa chilli salt used in homemade bitters that inform Hellfire, a sophisticated Wild Turkey bourbon old fashioned sweetened with honey. Twisted aperitivo hour classics - an Aperol spritz prepared with black moscato and hibiscus - and interesting hi-balls - Byrrh with San Pellegrino’s  bittersweet orange cola-esque soft, Chinotto, and Amer Picon mixed with Meantime Pale Ale, an Anglo take on the French farmer’s vieille école fave - are further reason to head tot Hansen and Lyan’s commendable collaboration.

at The Modern Pantry, 14 Finsbury Square  EC2A  1AH 3696 6965 www.themodernpantry.co.uk

By Appointment Only, Liverpool Street

Dwarfed by Bishopsgate's rampaging glass towers, all ornate Ottoman tiling and Moorish styling with additional help from Russell Sage Studios, I'm told, By Appointment Only is set in a rare beauty I'm keen to revisit - The Victorian Bath House. Previously a nightclub, after a prolonged dry spell, the heavenly hammam has reopened as a bar-cum-events space. Tonight, the only soaks in evidence are fellow hooch Hoovers, ministered to by a liveried 'butler' in a make-believe Belle Époque gentlemen's club. It's a hackneyed theme that's elswhere been done well - at Mr. Fogg's of Mayfair - and badly... at far too many others... like the ludicrous lair that was House of Wolf on Islington's Upper Street. I invite a PR/ event organiser chum along for an evening that should be more full of Eastern promise than a box of Fry's Turkish Delight. On arrival, we're offered complimentary coupes of fancy fizz. Nice touch. Sadly, it's as watery and flat as The Fens and is to Champagne, what some hopeless howler on Britain's Got F***-All Talent,  is to Aretha Franklin. Alarm bells ring. Unfazed, our butler scuttles off and reappears with what I take to be Prosecco. "Are you ready for your cocktail adventure?' he beams. We are. Problem is, nothing on a fanciful list floats our boats. Peanut butter rum and berry juice mix? Nope! Wash, Rinse Repeat? Sounds like a root canal session at the dentist's. Classic Shambles? (I quote) 'A couple of apple pies from our neighbours at McDonalds, dropped into a vat of Somerset Brandy.' Well, would YOU? Nothing is winking at me. I'll have to go off menu.

Me: "Might I try your home-infused quince and blue cheese gin... in a dry martini, please?" 
Butler: "urm....gin in a martini glass? I don't think we can do that. But we can make you a classic cocktail if you prefer." 
Me (discombobulated): "What could be more classic than a classic gin martini?"
Butler: "Vodka and lemonade? Whisky and Coke?"

Well that's sure to stretch those 'expert mixologists' here to 'delight your palate with largesse and liberation' (sic). At their lightly stocked, panto set bar that recalls a display fixture at the Cowdenbeath Co-Op circa the Coronation and rationing books, the experts are at work. PR pal settles for rosemary and lavender-infused gin and tonic. Poured from a Tanqueray bottle, served With Fever-Tree tonic water, it's overpoweringly perfumed and strident on the nose.

 "I'd rather drink gin and Vim!" she grimaces. 

I opt for the 'modern sophistication' that is the STFH - aka 'Salted Toffee From Hipflask' (sic). Pre-made, served from a hot water bottle-sized silver flask, it is presented with something lumpy, brown and wrinkly on a glass plate (pictured).  

"Eeew! That looks like a specimen diseased adenoid" announces my date just as I'm on the point of popping into my gob what turns out to be a dried date, the ideal partner to my drink..apparently. Having spent the previous two hours sampling great single malt cocktails at excellent nearby new whisky bar, Black Rock, this recherché rinse is, to put it mildly, a bit of a let-down. To my tastes, STFH is Simply Too F****** Horrid for words. But I'll try. Imagine scotch infused with Werther's Originals and the melted contents of the not-so-select selection box your great-auntie Marjorie gave you for Christmas 1969! 'So good, it's probably illegal' trumpets the menu. 'Should be!' tut tuts date reaching for her coat. Not keen to prolong our 'by appointment' disappointment at The Bath House, she's after an early bath at home. The following day, I scrutinise the menu's florid small print. "All our house infusions are presided over by Mr. PJ Hobbs who tinkers and plays as our 'Booze Mechanic'". On last night's showing, they might as well have hired Kevin Webster, Coronation Street's resident boozy mechanic. Unless new owners Camm and Hooper - the brains also behind Tanner and Co of Bermondsey Street - up their game dramatically, I won't be diving in again any time soon.

7 Bishopsgate EC2M 3TJ  3813 7114
 http://www.victorianbathhouse.co.uk

Threadneedle, The City

The first floor gallery hush bar - away from the hubbub of the Grand Cafe below - at imposing Victorian former City bourse, The Royal Exchange, has been rebranded, cosmetically retouched and relaunched by owners D&D as a discreet ‘new’ cocktail bar. The emphasis is on drinks inspired by the father of modern American mixology Jerry Thomas in his indispensable 1862 tome, Bar-tenders Guide. Savvy £12 signatures include a refreshing eucalyptus and kaffir lime Collins; Mexican Couperee ( a tart light vanilla foamed Patrón Añejo, Citronge and Falernum sour), and smoky brass teapot serve, Sauterelle - a vanilla-infused port and cherry liqueur Gin Mare Martini inspired by the Martinez rather than the crème de menthe-based Grasshopper its French name implies. Champagne (from £69 a bottle) and wine by the glass (from £5) are what to order with open sandwiches and small plates such as velvety tuna tartare (£9.50) and juicy Aberdeen Angus beef sliders that work well, where insipid frazzled fried squid (buried under a mound of toasted flakey pointlessness) fails when we visit during Threadneedle's soft launch.   

Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LR 7618 2480   http://www.royalexchange-grandcafe.co.uk 

My original review at www.squaremeal.co.uk

Demon And Wise/ The Arbitrager, The City

Hiding behind The Old Lady Of Threadneedle Street's skirts, new bar The Arbitrager is considerably smaller than I imagine the average oligarch's bank vault or Tom Cruise's closet to be. An arbitrager is traditionally a bod who deals in bonds, shares, commodities and the likes. The stock to buy into at this Square Mile bar-ette is liquid gold, as in a dozen or so doable London brews from the likes of Beavertown, Crate and Brixton to slake parched traders' thirsts. "Sold to the man in the bowler hat" for around the price of two shares in Barclays Plc (263p a piece as markets stand today). I'm more interested in investing in what lies below, however. Demon and Wise, the Arb's sister bar in the next door basement specialises in cocktails. When I visit at 9.30pm-ish, 95% of its demob-happy punters have pushed off, probably pished, to catch trains home to Hemel, Horsham, Hatfield and Hell, leaving this steamy (as in overheated) Steampunk Barbarella basement to me, an even older old soak (yes, such vampires do exist) and two simpatico Italian barkeeps - one of whom is clearly barking, having relocated to Barking or some such sad slum from Sardinia, such is Londra's lure in the eyes of the sort of young EUers UKIP would rather we not host. D+W is owned by The Hide, that useful hoochy hole-up in SE1. Prices, however, are more mohair and silk pinstripe than Bermondsey barrow boy at £11 (plus service) for my Monkey Shoulder-based Blood and Sand or a Tapatio Blanco-informed Flamingo from a list that is big on London gin: Portobello Road No.171 the preferred pour in Champagne-informed twisted G and T, Market Maker. Other recipes rope in rare and vintage Armagnac, malt whisky and the likes of Martini Gran Lusso; but at £16 +, such exotica will leave me in the red at Barclays. If only I'd stuck to my first ever job - something in the City - I could have bought this bar fifty times over by now or, like old boy on the next school, be hanging on in there for a gold-plated carriage clock before retiring to watch reruns of Four In A Bed, permanently bladdered in a Broadstairs bungalow.

27A Throgmorton Street, EC2N 2AN 3774 7654 www.demonandwise.co.uk 

Sky Pod, The City

Towering egotist Boris Johnson's architectural legacy will be a London skyline raped willy nilly by the filthy erections of willy-waving  'starchitects.' Could-be-anywhere skyscrapers thrown up by spivvy developers and financed by tin-pot despots from the Gulf to Guangzhou, these shameless shrines to Mammon are a depressingly familiar sight today. I don't dig Victorian pastiche. I'm no fan of mock-Georgian. I am not Prince Charles. Modern buildings per se are not my enemy: hello Hadid, Zaha; F off Farrell, Terry and take your tawdry towers with you! "But, hey! The little people will love any sub-Dubai crap outcrop as long as it comes with a cute nickname" reason the urban planners that have the ear of the mop-top Eton Mess in charge at City Hall. Today, I've scaled the 37-storey 'Walkie Talkie' (more of a 'molar implant' to my mind), a grim grey Goliath whose daft design meant the summer sun, reflected in and magnified by its concave curves, melted Mondeos parked outside. Nor is Oliver Wainwright, The Guardian's architecture critic, smitten: 'As a literal diagram of developers' greed, it provides painful proof that form follows not function but finance..poking its unwelcome bulk into the skyline from almost every possible vista." Like Kim Kardashian, only in concrete and glass, then? On the plus side, I suppose, the building's upper levels host a leafy new London belvedere; an indoor sky garden consisting of two vast banked swathes of sub-tropical foliage. Serving it, is an island cafe-bar run - like restaurants Darwin and Fenchurch on levels 36 and 37 above (both of which are blessed with more intimate bars, nota bene) - by caterers Rhubarb. In addition to those armed with bar or restaurant reservations, the aerial arboretum is open daily to the public; cue queues at the lobby level airport-style check-in. Order an £11.50 cocktail - Thyme For Tea, Chelsea Garden; or Autumn Breeze (vodka, pinot noir, falernum, beetroot and apple juices) - and the sort of snacks you'd expect of posh wedding canapé slingers such as Rhubarb as you watch the tourists coo over the "Oooh, aaah, Barb-a-ra!" wraparound views . Open until 2am, Sky Pod is undeniably cool ... as in, climate- controlled to the point where wooly blankets and hot water bottles are provided gratis. Cool in the other sense? Only if you're a fan Center Parcs and crass glass carbuncles.
20 Fenchurch Street EC3M 3BY http://skygarden.london/sky-pod-bar

The Alchemist, The City

Terry Christian-esque robotic drone aside, I like Mancunians. They're earthy, warm, funny and generous. However, if the London launch party for The Alchemist - a hit Manchester bar - is "owt to go by, cocker," as Bet Lynch would say, the last of those qualities is up for discussion. If you were introducing a new space specialising in (groan) 'molecular madness,' inviting London's most high-profile blasé bloggers, website editors and hard-to-impress hacks (count me in!), what would you serve? Let's see? Cocktails? So what Cheshire cheapskate imagined laying on free wine and lager, while expecting guests to pay for white martinez, chilli and mint daiquiri et al at the bar, was a smart move? I'm alright Jack. I identify an in-house marketing maven and tap her for a gin, rose and violette flower sour. Clocking this, some of London's less assertive pro barflies chew my ear: "Gonna sort out these tight Northern gits?" they plead. "Er...I'm not the PR!"...but I know a woman who is; and fortunately, the poor love cools my coterie's ire by the power of the bar tab... and the tongue-lashing she gave her recalcitrant client, I like to think. Alchemists turned base metal into gold, did they not? Tonight's faux pas is more a case of King Midas in reverse. TBH, I'm not fussed. I'd only dropped in en route to try Richard Woods' (more sophisticated) mixes at Duck & Waffle. From the Alkie's 50-strong (way too long) list, both smokey old fashioned  and smokey paloma are fair at £7.50 although I could live without the glass flask they come in - Croydon clap clinic connotations. Having visited The Alchemist a second time, I'll point you in the direction of chocolate orange sazerac and, if you are keen on cocktails as chemistry class, the Reyka vodka-based colour changing one (does as it says). Design-wise, a gargantuan eau de nil rococo cabinet as back bar is fun: the rest - high ceilings, neon, Chesterfields - is bog standard warehouse-cum-bar issue. The faffy approach to drinks might impress Manchester A-listers such as The Rooneys but the launch night bar food? Let's just say what did get reach us ( chicken nuggety things, mostly) would have made the Rovers' Liz McDonald blush. Where's Betty's hotpot when you most need it?
6 Bevis Marks EC3A 7BA 7283 8800 http://thealchemist.uk.com/bevis-marks

City Social, The City

Room with a view: Jason's latest gaff's cocktails come with a Gherkin garnish.

Spikey-top chefebrity Gary Rhodes once cooked breakfast of bacon and chipolatas for me at Margaret Thatcher's daughter Carole's Bankside loft. Before you jump to any erroneous conclusion ("exactly how pissed were you the night before?"), let me stress that I was there on a (very) slow news day, snouting for a scoop at a PR bash to launch some initiative by a pork-pimping bureau called Ladies In Pigs to which I'd been invited. Initially, I'd misread the event as 'Pigs in Ladies ' - a title that conjured up a tacky 50 Shades of Grey-style porno flick wherein various pot ugly footballer lookalikes - one, a Scouser with a penchant for grannies on the game - would 'pleasure' posh old birds. Also present at this surreal meal? Tory/ indie/ UKIP battle-axe Christine Hamilton. Point being, whilst I found old bangers Christine and Carole mildly entertaining in a kind of la-di-da Loose Women way, Gary appeared to have all the synthetic charm of one of the Ladies' see-through sausage skins. The bar at his Rhodes 24 restaurant at Tower 42 in the CIty always struck me in much the same way. 'Meh' to the max. Chef du jour Jason Atherton has never cooked breakfast for me - it can only be a matter of time - but he strikes me as an altogether more interesting sort. So too, his new sky lounge where once stood Gary's gaffe (sic). More sophisticated, more stylish, slicker, less frenetic or gimmicky than other Square Mile get-high-in-the-sky opportunities - hello Heron Tower! - City Social is a blue-chip banker. The busy room - think Wall Street boardroom pre-the '29 Crash - has a bullish confidence about it. It's like 2008 never happened. The views are an obvious draw but best go at sundown; butch brown-on-brown Art Deco-styling, and London below, both look better by night as - moving away from some unfortunate downlighting - do I in Atherton's otherwise seductively-lit space. Order bar snacks - boqueronnes, crab and avocado salad, or goat’s cheese churros with truffle honey - or more substantial dishes off the restaurant menu, also served in the bar. Innovative cocktails include It’s the British whey (brown butter-washed Johnnie Walker Black, PG Tips syrup, split milk whey, bitters, lemon juice and nutmeg, £11.50) - a fine example of why London's stock is riding high. The root of all evil, they say, is money and you'll do well to shell out yours on a walnut rum, Bramley apple syrup, poire William and root beer cooler of that ilk. I'm more circumspect about City Social's resident booze brokers' hot tip, tolero; worried that a Tapatio blanco, Tabasco, piquillo pepper and apricot brandy firecracker might leave me whistling Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire, confined in City Social's comfy, comely khazi.

Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street EC2N 1HQ http://www.jasonatherton.co.uk/restaurants/city-social/ 

The Sign of the Don, The City

The spacious ground floor bar at The Don’s smart new bistro is a cosy cork-walled charmer, suitable for City chinwags over a glass of finest Fino. The black-cloaked hombre depicted in the bar's branding has, for centuries, been synonymous with Sandeman, purveyors of award-winning sherries and port. Served comme il faut (unlike your nan's Christmas Emva Cream), wrap your laughing gear around various styles with shaved Bellota ham off the bone for an authentic taste of Spain. From a list of sherry-laced cocktails, I like flamenco (Woodford Reserve bourbon, Manzanilla, peach liqueur, mint, lime and barley syrup), and torero (loosely, a sherry Americano). The Don is also big on gin, stocked in numbers and used in sophisticated sours such as the Londoner (Adnams First Rate, Noilly Prat, apricot liqueur and lime with egg white). Nutty symphony (a cognac, fig, chestnut honey and butterscotch liqueur fix) is one of various £13 digestifs that promise ‘a surprising journey of flavours’ - albeit not a journey my palate cares to undertake. Three dozen wines come by the glass. Ask to visit The Don's fascinating 18th century cellars, where the restaurant’s stellar cast of 400 global hotties  has top notch Tempranillo and Pena das Donas Almalarga, an elegant mineral-rich white produced from Galicia’s godello grapes. Quality hams and crispy pork crackling aside, there's Manchego and sobrassada piquant sausage toastie (£7), various croquettes, deep-fried olives with goats curd, and smoked prawns. Service is slick and although, to the average St Paul's wage slave, prices may err on the steep side, off Cheapside, the Don is definitely your man.   

St Swithins Lane, EC4N 8AD 7626 2606 http://www.thedonrestaurant.com

adapted from my review for www.squaremeal.co.uk

Pelt Trader, The CIty

Retro pub mirrors last fashionable circa The Onedin Line grace walls that might have been better been left bare. Presumably a survivor of trading missions up Injun-infested American rivers, a lone Davy Crockett-style canoe dangles above this windowless boxy City vault located deep under the railway platforms of Cannon Street station above: you’re sure not here for the decor. When I add that Pelt Trader is the latest in a chain that includes Euston Tap and Holborn Whippet, this new bar’s raison d’être becomes clear: beer!  Hopheads are flocking to this City venture in numbers. And why not?  Know anywhere else in this parish that let's you choose from 30 regularly rotated craft keg and cask brews hidden behind a big 'beer wall.' No? Thought not! Prices start at £3 and sampling is positively encouraged.  So popular were Kernel Pale Simcoe -"one for the ladies" - and Buxton Wild Boar, they had sold out before I could sample them, leaving the likes of Buxton Imp, Tiny Rebel Billabong and Benedictiner weissbier to try. No hardship!  There’s a dozen wines from £16- £30 and thin crust pizza and charcuterie. Mutton, venison, goat and boar meatballs from Borough Market are set to be added in July 2013. The bar is shut at weekends, when Cannon Street's suits are consigned to Kent commuter-belt heaven, dreaming of Monday lunchtime at Pelt Trader as they sup swill at their local carvery, I imagine

Arch 3 Dowgate Hill EC4N 6NJ 3137 1872 @PeltTrader www.pelttrader.co.uk

Related Bars

Holborn Whippet REVIEW : http://tinyurl.com/c6lv2gd
Euston Tap REVIEW: http://tinyurl.com/nakk75r
Euston Cider tap: REVIEW http://tinyurl.com/qee7sk3

Duck and Waffle, City

Insomniacs with an interest in molecular mixology, apply within. Long after other watering holes have closed, Duck and Waffle’s lights (and creative cocktail-shakers) remain switched on, forty floors above the slumbering City below. Whether it’s for a wee small hours one-for-the-road Monkey Shoulder Whisky Sour (with rosemary and truffle foam), a G and T ponced up with rose petal and yuzu spume, or a bespoke breakfast Bloody Mary, D and W’s inside-out bar - think Garfunkel’s salad bar geared to adventurous drinkers with the £13 price of Dark and Stormy ‘bottled and bagged’ Bowery bum-style for modern-day Marie-Antoinettes’ amusement - is a fun, if slightly pretentious experience. Open 24/7 - although no hard liquor is available between 3 am and 8am  - its ‘iconoclastic’ cocktails are often prepared using unexpected ingredients: Sarson’s malt vinegar in your margarita? Why didn't I think of that? Staff, happy to waffle on about their ‘craft’, will not duck out of a challenge to ‘make mine a Mescal and Marmite martini, garçon!’ But like Marmite, opinion is split 50/50 on some of the smoke and mirrors mixology the date and I sampled:  A blow-torched barrel stave provided the smoke, lots of it, for a house Manhattan adjudged ‘complex and interesting’ or ‘like being at a party and accidentally drinking bourbon from the glass into which someone dropped a cigarette butt.’ Either way, you’ll find plenty to entertain you until the sun comes up. 

Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate EC2N 4AY 3640 7310 www.duckandwaffle.com 

See more reviews like this at  www.squaremeal.co.uk

Old Bengal Warehouse, City

Many of D and D's numerous London’s restaurants also include worthwhile bars. Each in its own way, the likes of Le Coq d’Argent (chic roof garden); Floridita (Mad Men-era Havana supper club); and Skylon (postcard-perfect vista and matching cocktails) make my ‘old standby’ list. To this, add the bar at the Old Bengal Warehouse, the group’s autumn City launch. Set in a simpatico conversion of grade II-listed premises in which the East India Company once stored Georgian-day necessities - tea, silks, opium - this seductive, low-lit, tobacco-tone lounge works beautifully. Its focus, a butch bar with high stools, is staffed by on-the-ball blokes who might double as Hugo Boss models. At around £9.50, rinses such as Pisco and Aperol sour, Martini with a Spot (of absinthe), Cider House Rules and Tequila New Fashion are top drawer. I don’t know about Damson In Distress (a whisky and damson liquor flip); but after a potent Martinez (and sundry similar ingestions), this old Bengal lancer (as in Cockney for ‘chancer’) is in barfly-on-a-bender territory. Fortunately, pukka snacks, ‘tiffin’ boxes, lobster cocktail and burger with dopiaza onions and tamarind chutney act as damage limitation. I also hazily recall a smart all-weather courtyard. Well, that’s my excuse for a repeat reccie.

16 New Street EC2M 4TR 3503 0780 www.oldbengalbar.com 

Sushisamba, The City

Acrophobics will not relish the 38-second rocket ride in a glass-sided lift up the face of the Heron Tower to its 38th floor. Thankfully, stiffeners for jelly legs are dispensed upon reaching Sushisamba. The first overseas outpost of a Yankee chain-ette punting Peruvian, Brazilian and Japanese nosh; it's bold, blingy, bright and brash in a kind of Vegasy/ Rihanna way. Higher than the nearby Gherkin, its views of London-by-night from an alfresco belvedere terrace provide the real ‘wow’ factor - its focal point,  a circular bar built around a gorgeous coppery ‘tree’ whose reinforced trunk and metal branches looks capable of withstanding Hurricane Hermione. Harmony hairspray (three cans) is advised for strategically-styled barnets, however and. given London's all-too-preditably unpredictable autumn weather, you'd do well to also pack Havaianas and Ambre Solaire plus Moon Boots and one of  Sir Edmund Hilary's old cagoules. From an interesting list, Pablo Piscobar (a yuzu-flavoured pisco sour) and Kaffirinha (using kaffir leaf-infused cachaca) work well enough at £9.50. I’m old-fashioned about Old-Fashioneds; so Tonka Bean Old-Fashioned’s queer menage-à-quatre - Bajan rum, tonka beans, star anise and Benedictine - fails to convert me to drinks 'Ja-per-zilian’ - as I christen Sushi-S’s fusion cocktails. I’m fine with Shiso Fine, though, until a barman drily suggests  this sweet and sour sling is ‘one for the ladies.’ Blown-out by the chill wind, the open gas coal-effect fire pit cannot be re-lit no matter how desperately staff strives. Shirt tails flapping like the clappers, this big girl’s blouse has had enough and scuttles indoors to a second, Manga-style, DJ bar. Corridor-like, garish, too brightly lit, and patrolled by security guards; it could be in an underground Shinjuku shopping mall. (Sushi) 'samba rolls’ are fun; our neighbours - sloshed suits, rolling drunk on the floor and snogging secretaries (tongues drilling as if for oil down Iain from I.T's grateful neck) ...not so much. Beery Loadsamoney boors excepted, (quote 'I don't want no attitude off no f**kin' barman; not when I've just dropped £400 on drinks') aside, it's a definite case of altitude slickness in the City.  110 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4HX 3640 7330  http://sushisamba.com/

Bread Street Kitchen Bar, The City

If the shouty chef is your bag, you can buy into the brand for a tenner at this compact street level bar, the portal to Gordon Ramsay's City juggernaut upstairs. To Russell Sage Studio’s witty design for the main act - a fantasy art nouveau brasserie that’s somewhere between Caro and Jeunet’s Delicatessen and Amélie Poulain -  are added pommel and vault horses (presumably borrowed from Dumbdown Abbey's gymnasium) as seating/ amuses yeux. Watching one determined wee boulder in a too-tight short black skirt squiffily attempt to hoik herself up on to just such an item while retaining her dignity, is the best laugh I've had today since hearing Fred the Shred's title was 'toast.'  Martinis such as the signature Grey Goose cinnamon-infused Bread Street (shaken with hazelnuts, grapes, apple and lime) - about right at £9 or thereabouts -  and the house take on mojito (muddle with pears)  are conjured up by efficient, rather than particularly effusive, staff.  On the coldest night of the year, many will be happy to encounter hot toddy and BSK Blaze (raisin-infused whiskey, pineapples, apples, pears and coconut liqueuer flamed with cinnamon). A good range of 30 wines by the glass from £4.50  includes fine claret and top notch Burgundy at £25 plus for Square Mile dealers. A disappointingly terse bar snacks menu offers three different toppings on pizzetta, meatballs in tomato sauce and cured meats. In the absence of any cheffy effin' and blindin'  coming from the kitchens, we conclude Big Sweary is not in da house, tonight. Maybe the gallant one has ridden to the rescue of yet another roadkill-serving kitsch inn's kitchen in Kentucky? How does he manage it all?

10 Bread Street EC4M 9AB www.breadstreetkitchen.com 

from my review at www.squaremeal.co.uk 

Sky Lounge at Nido, Spittalfields (CLOSED)

Observed through panoramic windows from the 32nd floor, incoming aircraft looming towards us are a disquieting prospect  on this the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I've been security checked and whisked up to the top of of Spittalfields’s gleaming new ‘Nido’ tower, one of numerous less than impressive erections the poor old City has been stiffed with lately. Decanted into a suite of rooms with a view, my attack of jelly leg syndrome is compounded by a door flapping open in the breeze to reveal a thin grille, the only thing keeping me from becoming abstract art on Petticoat Lane’s pavement miles below. This then, is Sky Lounge E1 - as opposed to the similarly unimaginatively-named eyrie at the nearby Mint Hotel - a boxy, stark white duplex whose vista of the City and ‘burbs beyond is undeniably impressive. Conceived in pre-Lehman Brothers days as a fabulous penthouse  for some bonus happy banker; unsold, it ‘s been identified by an eagle-eyed promoter as a perfect pop-up bar opportunity. That it will only trade on Tuesday to Friday evenings until April 2012, helps explain the cheapo David Brent office interior punctuated by the occasional white stool, potted plant and tacky ‘art.’ Luxurious and pretty, it’s not. But when there’s Pommery at £9.50 and flat stuff from £5.75 to be had, am I complaining? Of course I am. A tenner for a mojito is a tad too elevated, nice view or not and in the absence of sushi, sashimi and other menu items not present, we get olives and breadsticks. Still, this is as close as you’ll get to the Twin Towers’ Windows on the World in east London, more my idea of a sky lounge to write home about. As I leave, the lift attendant, an inquisitive chap of Slavic origin, asks me how much I think such a penthouse might fetch. 'Dunno. £4 million?' I guesstimate. 'English people are nuts,' he observes, not unreasonably. 

Nido Spittalfields, 32nd Floor, 9 Frying Pan Alley, E1. 3137 3938

http://www.kaiuk.com/Sky_Lounge.html