Ruby's Bar and Lounge, Dalston

Accessed down the same shonky staircase - as distinct from each other as the former premises they inhabit (a cheap chop suey joint and a naff Nigerian nightclub) - Tom Gibson’s conjoined dive bars are bang on the Dalston dollar. Turn left for anything from postmodern-ironic Snowballs (advocaat and lemonade with a maraschino cherry on top for 50s sophistication) to a spot-on Sipsmith Gibson in Gibson’s Peaky Blinders-era, peeling parlour; as sweet a snug as you’ll find in all N16. Turn right for a larger, booth-lined, party pit where the focus is on craft beers, European wines curated by Clapton oenophiles Verden, and street food residencies such as Hanoi Kitchen, purveyors of soft shell crab, maki rolls and chargrilled lemongrass grilled lamb chops. Launched in January 2016, the newer room’s low-rent 1960s working men’s club vibe - complete with bingo apparatus, a stage for live music, sundry turns, and DJs dropping retro rock and decent disco on a kick-ass system at weekends - pays homage to sadly no-more Mecca dance hall, The Tottenham Royal (pictured in its prime), where Gibson’s grandparents Twisted to The Dave Clark Five and to Beatles’ songs, he tells me. At their grandson's rebooted gaff, anticipate A Hard Day’s Night that will leave you in Bits And Pieces. 

72 - 76 Stoke Newington Road N16 7XB  www.rubysdalston.com

Relive it here: 

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-dave-clark-five-technicolor

original review at www.squaremeal.co.uk

The Gibson, Clerkenwell

Based on his wife and her equally comely sisters, published in Life magazine from the late 1890s onwards, artist Charles Dana Gibson’s iconic sketches of ‘The Gibson Girl’ defined America’s idealised vision of Belle Époque beauty. Around the same time - possibly in response to a challenge from the artist to improve on the traditional Dry Martini recipe - a New York barman substituted a pickled onion for the customary olive and The Gibson cocktail was born. You’ll find it (made with a selection of bespoke-pickled onions and pickles, no less!) and various classy twists on the same theme (such as legendary Scots-born barkeep Harry McElhone’s 1922 absinthe-laced Some Moth Cocktail) behind frosted glass windows, in the candlelit gloaming of this cute conversion of a Victorian corner tap-house from Marian Beke (previously at Nightjar) and Rusty Cerven (ditto The Connaught). An adventurous list has plenty of interest for gin refuseniks: Voodoo Rye, a pepper-infused Bulleit, Cajun BBQ syrup, melon puree, lemon and sweet basil, root beer mule, for instance. Monkey Kong (roast edamame-infused Monkey Shoulder whisky with mangosteen, rambutan and various sweet and sour flavourings is one of several complex and intriguing experiments that look to Asia now - as opposed to America, then - at this new Clerkenwell sweet spot, as good a gaff as any, hereabouts, in which to get nicely pickled.

44 Old Street EC1V 9AQ 7608 2774 www.thegibsonbar.london

Review first published on www.squaremeal.co.uk

Simmons, King's Cross

It has been a while since I last hung out here, but where else to go when Drink Shop and Dance closes? (http://tinyurl.com/kffgxhl ) Recently refurbished, here's a cross between a Beckenham bungalow's front parlour circa Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep - dig the coal flame effect brass fire -  and a set for a CBeebies show decorated courtesy of Steptoe and Son’s yard. Simmons opens around 4 pm when cheap deals spell danger as a happy hour that actually runs for 300 minutes kicks in. Served in car boot booty (?) - china tea cups at £6.50, or in teapots to share (from £15) - not-half-bad cocktails are a large part of this cheeky charmer’s appeal. Fire into French Martini, Long Island Iced Tea, White Russian or Jamble (gin, Chambord, raspberry jam and cranberry juice). By 2.30 am on weekends, it's jammed and jumping as DJs spin mashed-up tracks to the similarly mashed-upand mad-for-it  at what feels like an impromptu house party after the pub closes, held in someone's nan's front parlour while the old dear - ignorance is bliss - is in the hozzie having a hip replacement. Just don't break any of her kitsch ornaments. OK? And, after last week's shenanigans at Simmons, I'd say King's Cross to Notting Hill at around 4am must be the best value you can get for £1.40 in London...if you pick the right night bus (he says, cryptically).

32 Caledonian Rd, N1 7278 5851 www.simmonsbar.co.uk 

Tweaked from my review at www.squaremeal.co.uk

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/

Evans And Peel, Earls Court

In a two-bit basement, in a dead-end street, in a no-hope neck of town (Earls Court), you'll find a pair of flimflams masquerading as gum-shoes. Tell ‘em Eddie Mars sent you. They’ll take care of you real nice. Welcome to the Raymond Chandler-esque twilight world of Evans and Peel. Here, beyond a cunningly concealed portal in the bogus private eyes’ dusty sepia tone office, lies a jumpin’ juke joint where - for those on the lam deemed kosher by the Big Cheese -  Shebas and Sheiks suck up hot hooch and hillbilly chow served on Clyde’s bonniest ol’ bone china. It’s a PR girl cliché, but for once ‘speakeasy’ really does sum up a clandestine parlour got up on a shoestring as a sleazy 1920’s Chicago gin-mill. Plied with £9.50 slugs, even a tough nut will sing like a canary after Auntie May’s Marmalade Bronx, Rum Runner (Diplomatico, sweet vermouth, Grand Marnier and coriander bitters) and half a dozen Sidecars. Bartenders are dressed up Sting-style; that's as in 1973 Redford and Newman flick, not pretentious Newcastle knob/ tantric twat, Sting: he works for the Police. Neat Prohibition era twists - ‘moonshine’ (Meantime ale) dispensed from a radiator and wine bottles concealed, Bowery bum-style, in paper bags - are fun film noir touches. So pull your glad rags on and get your gams down here pronto.  Historical fact: this swell caboodle - diagonally opposite the old apartment of a balled-up English royal who some say got bumped off by a torpedo (case closed, never proven) before she could become queen - was once a  dodgy dive where old queens queued to pay the rent: On which note, if you’re after a dick for hire, try E and P on for size. 
310C Earls Court Road SW5 9BA   

www.evansandpeel.com 

Karpo, King's Cross - September 2013 now Megaro (see new review)

‘Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder’ said the guy with the lisp. Well, if you’re fond of the aniseed-flavoured spirit, hit Karpo at King’s Cross. The Megaro Hotel’s stylish, moodily -lit new dive bar is a persuasive ambassador for a range of absinthe served, as romantic tradition demands, with chilled water dispensed from exquisite Belle Époque glass fountains. The Marmite of the drinks cabinet, I used to hate the stuff; put-off by youthful misadventures in Glasgow where, poured over burnt sugar cubes on slatted spoons, bars once pushed it as ‘wreck the hoose juice.’ Cue frenzied trippy disco-dancing in total strangers’ Gorbals high-rise flats followed by immobilising paranoid half-blind hangovers. No wonder countless absinthe-raddled French Impressionist painters ended up as daft as their brushes. The trick is to ease yourself gradually in to this dangerous mistress’s seductive embrace. For a sexy first date, novices might risk Karpo’s subtly absinthe-d coupes - Fourth Degree (a Bermondsey’s Jensen Old Tom gin martini); Violent Femme (£7.50) or Corpse Reviver no.2  served with equally addictive spiced pecans. Still not tempted? There’s a range of non-Abs Fab alternatives and retro cocktail manuals for inspiration. But if you do yearn to see the green fairy, ‘Karpo diem!’ - says the guy with half an ear for Latin.   

23 Euston Road NW1 7843 2221www.karpo.co.uk 

Sky Lounge, The City

With the Nikkei in free-fall, some City traders risked vast amounts of wedge on a swift rebound for troubled Japan’s markets - 'someone else’s misery is another's golden buying opportunity' the maxim in these parts. By the time you read this, the carrion crows will either be be shirtless, s**t-faced on cheap vodka, or toasting a tidy profit in champagne - Armand de Brignac rosé (£600), say - on one of two sun decks at Mint Hotel’s Sky Bar. So popular is this new DJ lounge, reservations are already advisable, long before summer kicks in. What’s the big attraction? Not the hotel itself, as anodyne as any Square Miler’s stark Starck bachelor pad. No, it’s those views, yours for the price of beer. At £9 plus for a bottle of Goose Island Matilda or Belgian brute, Bière du Démon, a liquid cosh at 12% A.B.V, think of it as an investment. For, I’d pay twice as much for any panorama that encompasses Tower Bridge, The Gherkin and the shimmering Shard, breathtakingly beautiful by night. Similarly tasty, are cocktails such as Blackjack,  a liquorice-infused Buffalo Trace old fashioned and Hard Shoulder (£10.50), a Monkey Shoulder toddy that drinks like cold Lemsip - useful for this virused-up hacking hack, full of man flu tonight. Not to be confused with Sky Bar, a new loft I loathe down Westminster way, Sky Lounge is a banker for bankers and snap-happy tourists. Make it a Nikon: Japan needs your bucks. Mint Hotel, 7 Pepys St, EC3 0845 601 3009  http://tinyurl.com/68lcw6r