Equus, Whitehall

Set in what was the Secret Service’s WWII HQ, we only espied two other guests when we staked out this five star hotel's new bar, Equus. The title refers to cavalrymen  - as evidenced in various heroic wall-hangings of the sort you'd expect in Tory MP Sir Hangeman-Flogem's  constituency surgery - as opposed to Peter Shaffer’s dark play about a deeply troubled horse bothering naked Daniel Radcliffe. A trio of 'meh' rooms includes a curious overflow space-cum-corridor with a piano that’s ‘just for show’, Comfortable enough, their post-modern decor with its military tunic scarlet accents is not particularly memorable. An affable (Canadian?) barman shakes out £12.95 cocktails. Served with....just salted nuts (At this level? Are you sure?)...  several are named after past hotel guests: The Gladstone, a premier mix of Rittenhouse rye, Carpano Antica vermouth and bitters, is served Manhattan style while The George Bernard Shaw is basically a tweaked negroni with Cherry Heering preferred to sweet vermouth. Both pass muster. Patriotically, a portion of the cost of the brandy and burgundy-based Cavalry Cocktail goes to charities that support wounded soldiers.  Champagne (Lanson, £60), wine from £8 per glass (Costières de Nîmes) and Harviestoun Ola Dubh are also available at a bar that might not ultimately prove to be quite the ‘stylish destination’ it reckons it should be. 

The Royal Horseguards Hotel, 2 Whitehall Court, SW1A 2EJ 0845 305 8332

 http://tinyurl.com/6h73pok


Based on a review for Square Meal online

Dishoom Chowpatty Beach, Waterloo (CLOSED)

Clever Covent Garden chapatis, Dishoom, have set up camp - and I do mean ‘camp’ - by the river, where their Chowpatty Beach pop-up café/ bar is set to shine until Autumn rains spoil the party. Juxtaposed with Southbank’s Brutalist blocks, their folksy homage to Mumbai-sur-mer is as garish as a 20-rupee poster of Ganesh, the elephant god revered as the Remover of Obstacles. What’s been removed in the creation of Chowpatty B, are tonnes of sand to form a cute beach-ette, and half of some municipal tip’s debris. Imaginatively recycled, it provides the witty decor in a wooden shack that shakes to 60’s Bombay beats. Cute staff sport lurid slogan t-shirts: ‘Life’s a Beach and Then You Fry’ I think I recall in the case of a smiley chef slinging spicy street snacks in our direction. Thirst quenchers include wines (disappointingly, none Indian); Kingfisher; Thums Up cola and Limca lemon soda in their iconic bottles and authentic Gola Ices such as Kala Khatta (£6) - basically, a Tanqueray slush puppy. Also popular; some rummy liquid, served in a fresh coconut, whose taste reminds me that I need to top up the windscreen washing liquid in the old Beamer. The punters seem equally keen on fruity alco-’Tipples’ as sugary sweet as Bollywood babe Anushka Sharma’s smile but, as with the films, I’m not entirely sure what all the song and dance is about. Whatever. As a hip hangout, The Beach is a blast. Check out the talent: you might just pull the next David Gandhi.

Southbank, Belvedere Rd SE1 http://tinyurl.com/3hhymwa

The Worship Street Whistling Shop, Shoreditch

Marylebone’s much-admired Purl has a new gaff in Shoreditch. In what was once The Pulpit, converts to the owners’ mission for molecular mixology are already worshipping at the whimsically-titled Worship Street Whistling Shop: in Georgian times, a Whistling Shop was a euphemism for an illicit still-cum-speakeasy. Leftfield libations such as Exploded Vodka Martini and Radiation Aged Cocktail include arcana produced in a working lab, open to view; ‘chip pan bitters’ and ‘removed cream’ used to soften the juniper attack of a Black Cat gin martini, for example. Such experiments mostly pay off although virgin olive oil in my date’s lemony gin fizz is declared ‘pointless and salad dressing-y.' Adding an adult dimension to the ‘bottle v breast’ debate, baby’s formula milk appears in a (Substitute) Bosom Caresser: mixed with fine de Cognac, dry Madeira, echt grenadine and salt and pepper bitters, this better-than-Baileys balsam is suitably yummy mummy on the lash. Shades of Empire eats are provided by the bar’s catering partners, Temple and Shian, and enthusiastic staff are kitted out in suitably Downstairs duds to greet their Upstairs guests - City mouse manipulators, mostly, when I drop in.  As for TWSWS’s decor, I’m signing off a different hymn sheet to its growing band of devoted disciples. Give me dirty-sexy-louche or Sinatra suave: an austere Dickensian brick bunker in cough linctus browns that’s three amputee dragoons short of Flo Nightingale’s Crimean hospital ward isn’t my idea of seductive. Nor do I fancy a poky private room to hire for up to ten. Its focal grimy bathtub suggests murderous Chamber of Horrors psycho John George Haigh who dissolved his victims’ bodies in acid in his. Perhaps this too is a crucible for more experimental cocktail outlandishness?

63 Worship St EC2 www.whistlingshop.com 

ZTH, Clerkenwell

Designer Russell Sage’s mise-en-scène at the inviting lounge bar at the new Zetter Townhouse Hotel is a triumph: a doolally punked-up parlour - think Miss Havisham meets Siouxsie Sioux  - furnished in a raid on Steptoe and Son’s yard. Behind stereo converted Clerkenwell townhouses’ powder blue door, lies a seduction that’s only a few good-time girls short of the bawdyhouse you frequented in another life as a debauched pre-Raphaelite painter. In their natty neckerchiefs, the uniformed barmen belong in a Millais portrait; that, or on Dries Van Noten’s catwalk. Also referencing bygone times with a decidedly contemporary twist, the £8.50 house specials, courtesy of Tony (69 Colebrooke Row) Conigliaro, are cocktail alchemy to write home about. I say ‘write home’ because, once you chuck in reasonably-priced nibbles from Bruno Loubet's bistro kitchen  - zingy Vietnamese squid salad, melty beef daube on mash, properly al dente pea and loveage risotto and generous charcuterie boards - and I’m tempted to make ZTH my permanent address. Top of Tony’s quaint quality quaffs are The Master At Arms, an updated rummy revenant for sophisticated sea dogs that incorporates a port reduction to mellow effect ; The Flintlock - Beefeater 24, gunpowder tea tincture, dandelion and burdock bitters and Fernet Branca; who’d have thought that lot would work well together? - and Les Fleurs Du Mal; a sherbet lemony absinthe grenade that sends my Parisian date into Baudelairean rapture, lauding London's 'fabuleux' cocktail joints. Thank fuck I chose ZTH,  not TGIF!

49-50 St John’s Square EC1V 4JJ 7324 4444   

www.thezettertownhouse.com

Adventure, Covent Garden

A door gorilla eyes me with suspicion. I'm outside Adventure in Covent Garden. En route to a bit of a do,  dressed in black tie, I'm keen to have a quick butcher's. Is the suturnine one about to warn me I'm way too chic for what was once backpacker pit, Bok, a place guaranteed to 'gie you the boak', as the say in Bo'ness and Brechin? Whatever. He makes no attempt to deter me, so preoccupied is he with his own thoughts. Pensive, miserable, Is he wondering why he ever left his reassuringly humdrum life in Dresden, Droylsden, Drabsville South Africa or some other dump whose residents dream of London's gold pavements to be stood on those very same sidewalks for whatever sum he's earning per hour? Adventure, it transpires, is a new uptown adventure for a trio of similarly-named south London bars. The basement bunker boasts two bars in a long vaulted industrial-style corridor with high banquette seating. The overall impression is one of drinking in a glorified London Underground tunnel - the Party Line, perhaps. The price of  a cocktail - nigh on £10 - is about the same as for a return to Finchley Central these days, only with much better customer service thrown in: who'd have ever thought it?  The place is clearly a popular post work kick-back, thanks to special deals and happy hour until 7 pm when £9.50 bags a brace of cocktails from an unexpectedly interesting list that runs to apple martini and Uncle Vanya (an Absolut vodka, crème de mure and sours mix). I'm not sure who'd want the frozen black Irish and the Malibu, chocolate, nut and creamy confection that is Umpa Lumpa.  Willy Wonka’s vertically-challenged helpers are the only ones not at risk of banging their heads on Adventure’s low brick walls. Wines from £15 mean the adventure continues until midnight. Will I be hurrying back? Based on this photo of a typical cross-section of customers; what do you reckon?

20 Bedford Street WC2 07739 325180 www.adventurebar.co.uk

Adapted from a review at www.squaremeal.co.uk.

See even more like this at www.metro.co.uk 

Good Godfrey's, Aldwych

What dash was once cut at The Waldorf’s Palm Court, the place where London's Brilliantined rakes and derring-do dames learned to tango, was lost as the hotel, then synonymous with elegant living, faded into mediocrity and the beau monde deserted her. Part of a major makeover by Hilton, its new 1920’s-style lounge - named after former resident big band leader, Howard Godfrey - hopes to attract today’s generation of cocktail-mad young things. And, why not? Any list that includes well-executed revivals Martinez and pre-Prohibition-era pink Philadelphian, lovely Clover Club, deserves respect. Alas, house signatures underwhelm. Rosemary-anointed foamy flip, Spring Memories won’t spring to my mind in a hurry and prissy pink Refined Madam’s Tanqueray 10 is better in Waldorf-tini, a hoochie coochie that’ll show any punter a good time for £17. ‘Edible gold flake don’t come cheap, dearie!’ Served in a hip-flask, bourbon blast The Astor is a cute idea. Other ideas, such as art deco atomisers for perfumed finishing spritzes, reference rivals: The Dorchester, for example. Presided over by the capable Nelson, a Portugeezer who knows what to do with a shaker, a handsome illuminated onyx bar cuts it, but the room, all penumbral (listed) panelling, needs lighting tweaks for warmth and interest. Elsewhere, stylistic affectations such as an ivory tinkler’s straw boater (naff) and a bowler-hatted lanky doorman’s too-large uniform (Freddie ‘Parrot-Face’ Davies?) - amuse. Godfrey’s report card? Good: could be very good.   

Good Godfrey’s, Waldorf Hilton, Aldwych, WC2B 4DD 7836 2400

http://tinyurl.com/66qwppa

The Piccadilly Institute, Soho

Giant Lewis Carroll-esque figures greet us outside the Piccadilly Institute, a Jabberwocky among gin joints. Its Twilight world tangle of themed bars attracts impressionable souls who pee their pants over R Patz but settle for drenched-in-Lowcoste-aftershave Olly Murs-alikes in too-tight shiny tailoring. Formerly On Anon - whose hilarious Canadian lumberjack cabin, now defunct,  was as kitsch as anything on Hi Di Hi -  the rambling pile’s darker new gothic trappings are supposed to design a fun adventure playground. I admire Damien Hirst-y diamond-clad antler chandeliers and Clinic, a crepuscular conspiratorial Dickenisan cocktail laboratory its white tiled walls lit cough linctus amber. Somewhere in the building's bowels, there's a Zen 'garden', I'm told, but my barnav clearly isn't working tonight. I settle in another of its half a dozen bars (called Noir) where my £6.80 ‘margarita’ is crafted by a blonde lovely in black rustling tulle tutu. Frankly, Desmond Tutu could do no worse: served in a warmish glass sans salted rim, it’s the vilest lip-puckeringly acidic trauma I’ve suffered since, off my nut , I once licked a lime fragrance toilet block to win a bet. If this is a margarita, my name’s Margarita Pracatan. ‘How about a dry martini?’ I ask, not unreasonably, of somewhere that offers cocktails. Ms Tutu glugs dry vermouth in a glass, enquiring cheerfully if I ‘want anything with it?’ Happy hour, I like... but amateur hour? My advice? Ladies, stick to Heidsieck (it’s champagne, not a nursery game) and dump Olly, Sex on the Beach and Lime Slime shooters for someone who’ll introduce you to grown-up drinking dens like Hix a short stroll away from this theme park aimed at the sort of people who watch TOWIE on TV...but not in an ironic way.