If you’re anticipating Mustique, as in the late-Princess Margaret’s dream holiday destination, walk on by. That’s if you can squeeze past the ranks of off-duty suits smoking, texting and shivering their tits off by the potted palms on the pavement outside. Formerly The Prophet -whose plunging prophet margins presumably did for it - Mustik is a bar/ restaurant/ nightclub hybrid set to Latino beats. Its aim? To inject a shot of Trinidadian warmth and hospitality to the grey concrete canyons of EC2. I'm not sold. There's a nod to lurid, crazy tropical colour clash but, overall, the space feels more like a two-star package hotel in the Dominican Republic - or Doncaster, come to that - than a sun-kissed Tobago beach shack fit for the Glenconner clan, whose late 3rd Lord turned Mustique into Windsor-sur-mer. Among the Mr Boombastic cocktails, rio fuego (cachaça, lime, chili and passion fruit puree) and chiquita (a frozen rum, crème de banane and pineapple juice concoction) are Sunny Delight at £6.50. There are ranks of chrome spouts and wine from £16.50, but what encourages a repeat visit is a menu of Caribbean eats: patties, ackee and salt fish and fritters as bar bites, to braised oxtail with butter beans, stews, jerk or calypso fish and chicken and escoveitch via ‘rasta pasta’ and that well-known Carib classic, portobello mushroom burger with mozzarella and Med veg. Surely some Mustake, there? Thursday, 7 October 2010
Mustik, Finsbury (CLOSED)
If you’re anticipating Mustique, as in the late-Princess Margaret’s dream holiday destination, walk on by. That’s if you can squeeze past the ranks of off-duty suits smoking, texting and shivering their tits off by the potted palms on the pavement outside. Formerly The Prophet -whose plunging prophet margins presumably did for it - Mustik is a bar/ restaurant/ nightclub hybrid set to Latino beats. Its aim? To inject a shot of Trinidadian warmth and hospitality to the grey concrete canyons of EC2. I'm not sold. There's a nod to lurid, crazy tropical colour clash but, overall, the space feels more like a two-star package hotel in the Dominican Republic - or Doncaster, come to that - than a sun-kissed Tobago beach shack fit for the Glenconner clan, whose late 3rd Lord turned Mustique into Windsor-sur-mer. Among the Mr Boombastic cocktails, rio fuego (cachaça, lime, chili and passion fruit puree) and chiquita (a frozen rum, crème de banane and pineapple juice concoction) are Sunny Delight at £6.50. There are ranks of chrome spouts and wine from £16.50, but what encourages a repeat visit is a menu of Caribbean eats: patties, ackee and salt fish and fritters as bar bites, to braised oxtail with butter beans, stews, jerk or calypso fish and chicken and escoveitch via ‘rasta pasta’ and that well-known Carib classic, portobello mushroom burger with mozzarella and Med veg. Surely some Mustake, there? 
