The agreeably shambolic Mahogany Bar at Wilton's Theatre is a popular spot for jobbing thesps, the occasional star (Miss Minnelli is a fan), E1 trendsters and rubbernecking tourists who have picked out this landmark architectural gem from their guide books as a must-see. Quite right too: fabulously atmospheric and now a World Heritage site, Wilton's is the planet’s oldest surviving working music hall. Muso anoraks will know it from videos such as Annie Lennox's No More I Love Yous, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax http://tinyurl.com/2a6rnw and more recently, Mumford and Sons' Little Lion Man. Originally Georgian, rebuilt in mid-Victorian times, a survivor of the Blitz, it's little changed from the days when vaudevillian Champagne Charlie was a regular turn on its stage. When you finally elbow your way to the bar, you'll find Meantime and Black Isle on tap, wine from £17 - £30 and, if the locusts haven't stripped the place bare, aperitivi - served gratis, unlike at various London imposters - from 6 to 8pm. So popular did its upstairs Green Room - normally reserved for artistes - prove with punters when it was opened to them during the theatre's recent staging of The Great Gatsby, it's now a cocktail bar, open to the public from Wednesday to Saturday each evening until 11 pm. Relive The Good Old Days with tipples from £7. In a strong cast that includes ginger and scotch martini, The Great McGonogall, and bittersweet chocolate sip, Montezuma, prune-infused Armagnac swashbuckler, D’Artagnan, manages to steal the limelight.
Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley E1 7702 2789 http://tinyurl.com/cvpjpxv
