Discount Suit Company, Whitechapel

(how to look like Dermot O'Leary, on the cheap?)

                                               

Fancy somewhere new to wet your whistle? Try this dishy wee dive bar located in the former stock room at Discount Suit Company (It does what it says). As suits go, this is more flea market find than The Kooples, the French chain that's suddenly all over our high streets like a bad rash? Who shops there? Stylists for bad boy bands? The chain's up-its-own-cul (that's "arse" in Parisian prick speak) 'we're-so-kool' kooply advertising campaign gives me 'the dry boak' - as a Sauchiehall Street tailor would put it (supposing that once great Glasgow shopping strasse still housed such chaps; bursting at the seams as it now is with similarly nantoise schmutter merchants.) What? Oh yes, I digress. Rant over. I'm back in the bar. To classic Wigan Casino sounds, hang out with cute Cockney sparras and buff boys that work Petticoat Lane's barras (you wish!). Knock yourself out on bargain-ish booze (or the cellar's low-slung beams - fatal for anyone who shops for suits at High and Mighty)  Try on the ‘tails for size. I like the look of the sours or sloe gin and apricot fix, Charlie Chaplin. Mezcal, velvet falernum, pineapple and lemon number Pina Fumada? ”Oooh, suits you sir!”

29 Wentworth Street E1 7TB 07887 560 421 http://www.discountsuitcompany.co.uk

St James Bar, St. James's

£17 for a Belvedere Bloody Mary sounds expensive. When I add that it comes with charcuterie, roast chicken dinner and pudding as part of a fantastic Sunday lunch deal at The Balcon; form an orderly queue!  Having saved yourself a packet, splurge it immediately at the brasserie’s elegant sister bar, St James. Gallic swoons, dressed as if by The Kooples for the new film version of de Maupassant’s Bel Ami, deliver killer cocktails with a sexy French accent. Evocative titles I could not have bettered had i chose them myself, include Pépé le Moko - a nod to Jean Gabin's character in the 1930's gangster caper of that ilk. Built on Ardbeg malt and Eldorado aged rum, it's a smoking gun for hire at £13.50. Yes, that’s almost what lunch just cost, but trust me, you want it!. A tequila and Aperol vision - decorous and flawless - befits its inspiration, Kiki de Montparnasse - Man Ray’s muse, the toast of sybaritic 1920’s  Paris. Recalling that same pre-War joie de vivre, exotic fancies Miss Mistinguett, Topaze (after Marcel Pagnol) and Petite Tonkinoise (after Josephine Baker) are reason for repeat visits, but limit yourself to two: these bébés are lethal. The bijou lounge is a play on Coco Chanel’s Rue Cambon salon. Taking against one cocktail, I’m told Chanel insisted its name, Mademoiselle Cinq, be changed. It was... to 1921, the year No5 was launched. Based on some historians' claims about the designer's political sympathies, would ‘Nazi Poodle’ or 'Miss Swastika' have been de trop?

Sofitel St James, 6 Waterloo Place SW1 7968 2900 www.sofitelstjames.com