Caipirinha Bar at Cabana, Brixton

(one familiar face looks happy- Sandra from Gogglebox )

No sooner had the Champagne corks popped at midnight; 2016 began to shape up as an annus horribilis. "Serves you right for buying your Hogmanay fizz from The Co-Op, you cheapskate!" you snark. But at £16.99, or whatever its current offer price, Les Pionniers beats many a bigger Brut, I'll have you know. First upset: Michel Delpech, the French pop star that soundtracked my Blé En Herbe years, croaked his last. Next, the markets went into mega-meltdown mode; 'informed insider' punt on China as shonky as most everything those Asian a'holes mass produce; and then ..the unthinkable: BOWIE! Cue an emotional tsunami on a "Princess Di just died" scale; the slight difference being that Bowie's talent went far beyond rocking a frock and cleverly manipulating the media. Drawn or by coincidence; ostensibly to check out a new bar; I'm in Bowie's native Brixton, at the shrine to Ziggy (who'd surely scoff at such sentimentality) where a generation grieves the glue that held it together - the Thin White One's (truly) unique Sound and Vision. Can forty years really have passed - "sordid details following" - since this precocious show-off was excluded from prep school for showing up with a rainbow-died feather cut and a streaked face? My bronze shimmer, kingfisher blue and 'Flaming Flamingo" flash (courtesy of Miners and Rimmel from my sister's make-up bag) less The Prettiest Star, more a lad insane. The Golden Years - when I span the man at Boys Keep Swinging, a post-punk disco night I hosted at The Fridge, just yards from his makeshift memorial - dead and buried...or cremated, in his final brilliantly orchestrated act to prevent the mawkish media circus his funeral would have surely otherwise been. Tonight, I'll drown my Sorrow (his cover of The Merseys' hit, a personal favourite) and toast the Starman in caipirinhas in the Victorian bowels of Britain’s first purpose-built department store; the now-defunct  Bon Marché, the unlikely setting for a much needed blast of Brazilian sunshine in  sad SW9. At Cabana, surf boards as tables and Castrol oil drum as tub chairs - among the recycled furniture that benefits the poor of Brazil’s favelas - set the tropi-kitsch, beach bum scene for this mid-market chain’s standalone cocktail lounge. Here, the classic Rio cachaça cocktail comes in various fruity flavours along with Ipanema Iced Tea, boozy batidas, coladas and hurricanes such as Carmen Miranda and Red Parrot - juicy at £7.95 - and snacks of gloopy guacamole, salt and pepper squid, and crispy, melted cheese pastels. DJs spin electro-bossa and power samba and by 10pm, this Copacabana carnival is steaming. An excited girl is proudly showing off a selfie taken with Olly Murs. "Shame it wasn't Zayn!" sighs her friend. "Or Justin" adds another. In years to come, I imagine the girls will, like my chums, be just as inconsolable when the visionary, talented, truly original, not-at-all manufactured epoch-defining Messrs Malik and Bieber depart this mortal coil.

201 - 207 Ferndale Road SW9 8BE 7326 5760  https://cabana-brasil.com/restaurants/brixton/

Libare Bar, Mayfair

Given the increasingly astronomical price of gent's tailoring, you'll need a stiff drink after a Savile Row suit fitting. Unless you are among the Kanye Wests of this world, in which case, the KarKrashian bling that nowadays infests once classy Bond Street (hello, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Dolce et al!) is more your style. Libare fits the bill. Part of D and D London’s major autumn 2015 refurbishment of Sartoria, the restaurant’s rebooted destination bar is as sharp as an Anderson and Sheppard whistle; albeit, its cut more Via Montenapoleane Milano than traditionally tweedy Mayfair. Park up on copper leather high stools at the marble-topped bar where Fellini-esque signori, sharp in Chartreuse velvet tuxedos, dispense aperitivo hour spritzes, seasonal Bellinis, twisted Negronis and liqueurs created by chef patron Francesco Mazzei. New room, new ideas: I like fennel-infused gin martini; a Mediterranean Mojito that adds basil and cherry tomato to the classic formula, and a deviant Smoked Bloody Mary that prefers Lagavulin 16 and Don Julio Blanco tequila to vodka, all good at £12. Order one of over a dozen by-the-glass wines from £5 with thinly sliced Italian hams and salumi. Bar food includes minestrone, veal in tuna sauce, anchovy and panzanella salad, Puglian barley bread with grilled vegetables plus sorbets, ices and pastries. ‘Libare’ translates as ‘to sip’. Sounds about right in such elegant surroundings.
Sartoria, 20 Savile Row W1S 3PR 7534 7000 http://www.sartoria-restaurant.co.uk

Original review appears at www.squaremeal.co.uk

Margaux, Earl's Court

English may no longer be the lingua franca in SW5. Other tongues nowadays increasingly dominate in Earl’s Court - which this address technically is, regardless of the Jo Hansford blonde estate agents' assurances that 'this is, like, super-prime South Ken, yah?' Thankfully, most resident Sloanes' French vocab runs to ‘encore du champagne, Chablis et Margaux old chap’ - all of which are available at this recently-opened dishy wee wine bar. Like the bulk of its clientele, the bar's well put-together wine list is a bon chic bon genre mix of French and Italians, with a smattering of New World and Eastern European interest. A 200-strong selection has Picpoul de Pinet, vieilles vignes Carignan, St. Chinian and Puglian Neprica all at either side of £30. Top drawer grapeage for hedge fund Henris, flush from a good week at le bureau include a 1999 Margaux at £750. A more accessible swallow from the same appellation appears at £8.50 among a range by the glass or carafe. For brunch, choose from a selection of eggy ideas - Benedict, Florentine, halloumi and heirloom tomato omelette (£11) - savoury tartines, and salad of salmon niçoise. Dishes for lunch or dinner might typically include foie gras and pear in a vanilla and port reduction en brioche (we'll brook no anti-Fortnum's bleatings here, you skanky sans culottes); porcini risotto (£13/ £18); sea bass ceviche; seared scallops with butternut squash and caramelised onion or boeuf bourgignon on creamy polenta. Over puds and Sauternes, play spot the Windsor: Harry, Wills and various court jesters cruise a strip that was also once home to Diana Spencer who resided at Coleherne Court. I blame the Versace-loving princess for the 'hood's slide from sedate Sloanedom towards something akin to Geneva-sur-Tamise. 

152 Old Brompton Road SW5 0BE 7373 5753 www.barmargaux.co.uk 

Ruski's Tavern, Kensington

The first time I visited Russia, it was still part of the dreaded Soviet Union. Head-to-toe in my Yohji/ Comme cod-Stalin comrade look that cost more than a red army of grain-harvesting Volgograd gummy grannies would earn in a lifetime, how I pitied the stern-faced matrons jostling 10-deep, hell-bent on securing the latest (only) thing to hit the shelves that week at Moscow's appalling State-owned department storeski GUM -  ludicrously expensive, revolting crude red lippy that any self-respecting 6-year-old London fashionista who found such a joke item attached, free, to a kiddies magazine at WH Smith would jettison pronto. The only other items for sale were gas stoves, toothpicks, rat-traps and nasty Nylon Romanian track suits in vilest vanilla and mauve hoops. Nowadays, it's Russian nouveaux riches' turn to pity Brit paupers, packing out Primark while they drop thousands on Vuitton, Versace, Gucci and Louboutin - yet somehow contrive to still look like Red Square hookers circa Letter To Brezhnev. Will homesick Russians dig Ruski's Tavern, new in Kensington opposite Embassy Row? Who knows? But for anyone who fancies a life of caviar and chips washed down with 6 litre bottles of Cristal that, at £25,950, cost more than a brand new BMW 120i ES Coupé (or a terraced house in Burnley - twinned with Chernobyl), this mock Cold War-era Muscovite bar/ club pastiche with its daft cosmonaut 'art' is the place to hang out. It's opposite, and run by two escapees from, that other themed posho playground, the hilariously tacky Bodo's Schloss; a Heidi Hi I secretly enjoyed (see http://tinyurl.com/mx64oa2 ) For the price of a Red Army, or Kremlin, cocktail (a tenner), perhaps you can reel in the sort of jammy basturt that can afford to keep you in the manner to which you want to become accustomed. Hedge fund Hugos; Made In Chelsea chumps; junior oligarchs; Monaco and Marbs-trash; football club owners et al.
1 Kensington High Street  W8 5NP 3747 6919 http://www.ruskis.com