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.

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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.

Jam Tree, Fulham

At the private view of Proud Chelsea’s Sex, Drugstores and Rock & Roll: A History of the King’s Road, a bevy of demobed dolly birds and 60s faces now in their sixties are out in their finery. How fashion-fantastic that thoroughfare must have been in its patchouli-drenched Sergeant Pepper heyday. Nowadays, it’s a boulevard of bland, boring as a Boden-ed-up Belgian banker. By the bridge where Chelsea slums it with Fulham, there’s a new kid on the block, Olympia food pub The Jam Tree’s second branch. A big decked beer garden defies the sun not to shine from now until September and I like the main room’s funked-up new Britannia pose. A shortish wine list peddles quaffable stuff at under a score but upgrade to a zesty Picpoul de Pinet (£23.50), good with ‘colonial’ pub food: that’s Malaysian spicy noodle soup (laksi), Jamaican chicken curry (£12.50) and nasi goreng but not haggis unless they want their windows pushed through by outraged Bravehearts. The signature cocktail, (strawberry) Jam Mojito, is well enough executed but doesn’t improve on the classic recipe. On my second reccie, the crowd is a mix of Chelsea bland blondes and Chelseigh and her lairy Plan B lookalike mates from Fulham’s remaining ungentrified terraces. Stylish? In the 90s, this site housed Revolution, or at least that's what my brain cell thinks one of Jam Tree II's on-trend-for-a-nano-second predecessors was called. Sadly, King's Road's cool crown has long since slipped. The new owners should look to Haggerston or Deptford for Jam Tree III.

541 King's Road SW6 2EB 020 3397 3739 www.thejamtree.com

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

Foundation, Covent Garden

Foundation in Covent Garden comes courtesy of LatenightLondon, the behemoth that begat Tiger Tiger, Sway and Grace, inter alia. At their latest trademark megabar-diner-cum-nightclub, a mishmash of funky, loud retro styling ideas suggests its designers have been on a crawl of London’s edgier bars: Callooh Callay; Lounge Bohemia; Danger of Death - it all looks vaguely familiar. If I were 19, up-West on a date with Ashleigh, a junior stylist at Curl Up & Dye of Ilford, I’d be well-impressed by such sophistication. Unlike Ash, our drinks don’t cut it. Pear and Cinnamon Mojito tastes like licking the jammy layer in a poncey French yogurt pot while my editor strikes a mental red pen mark through her chosen cocktail. Billed as an ‘excessive and fabulous red hibiscus daiquiri...Darling!’ Holly Golightly could be a melted alco-ice pole for all I know: less Breakfast at Tiffany, more rinse at Ratner’s, this liquid bauble's cost is excessive. For something truly fabulous,  take your £9 to Hawksmoor across the street, darling. Cute staff / ditzy service deliver bog standard steak sandwich and fish finger sarnie. It's the kind of scran I’d probably appreciate more, blootered and famished at 3 am. If Nicki Minaj, Hollyoaks, CKOne, Superdry and a dissertation on how fit (or not) are the birds on Jersey Shore - our neighbours’ specialist subject - work for you, Foundation might just float your boat. It sure as hell ain't aimed at me.

5 Langley St WC2H 9JA 7836 5005http://www.foundation-bar.co.uk 

The Dime Bar and Diner, Battersea

If it’s broke, fix it! The thinking, I imagine, behind this venue’s recent Americanisation. Out goes all pan-Asian pretence - its previous short-lived pose as The Red Monkey having not exactly wowed SW11 -  junked in favour of a Mad Men-era cocktail lounge-cum-diner that's, spiritually, from somewhere down Vegas way. Gamblers might fancy a £7 punt on Pink Cadillac, Big Apple Sour, Bluegrass Cosmo or Chuck Berry Julep (honeyed Bourbon, fresh blueberries, plum and mint) or Jackie O ( a vodka, lychee, blueberry and elderflower Collins). Wandering Bear - American chardonnay at £16.50 -  is one of a dozen or so wines on offer and Yankee ale includes Brooklyn lager. To eat: Elvis burger; tuna melt; pulled pork; calamari; wings; macaroni cheeses... and scant pickings for veggies. What has been retained from the site’s previous incarnation, are three state-of-the-art karaoke suites from £30. ‘Hit The Road, Jack’ to Clapham Junction if you fancy it . One question: will there be enough takers? Buddies, can you spare The Dime? 

50 Battersea Rise SW11 7924 6288 http://www.thedimebar.co.uk/ 

For more of my reviews like this, go to www.squaremeal.co.uk