The Golden Arrow, St Pancras

In my fluffier Mills and Boon moments, I imagine bars in railway stations to be high on romantic thrills. One last Belvedere martini at The Gilbert Scott or The Booking Office Bar before you French kiss your fantasy Parisian chaud-ie 'au revoir' at l'Eurostar terminal? Oui, oui, OUI! The reality: a swift can of Carlsberg at Liverpool Street before Anjii from accounts skulks back to her old boy and brats in Billericay? Not in my script! Conveniently located next to St Pancras and Euston, named after The Golden Arrow - that most glamorous of London-Paris pullman boat trains from an age when continental travel was not yet within reach of the sans culottes -  this 'premiere upscale' hotel lounge promises much. In the event, it reminds me more of another form of travel. Hard-edged, shiny, sleek, 60s postmodernist corporate canteen-like decor, I'm in an American airport circa late-TWA...and the vibe such as there is, is dull as Dulles International. A stellar range of 200 fine whiskies, Calvados and cognac such as Rémy Louis XIII (at £175 a shot) deserves more seductive surroundings. Ditto, classic cocktails (£9.50) and house ideas such as Appleton 12 chocolate mojito, or pullman connection (a Ketel One, Midori and lychee fix). The bar’s Enomatic system offers a useful range of wines by the glass, albeit none from England on the list we’re handed. Likewise, a selection of contemporary local beers might anchor the hotel to its host city - a trick attempted here by those ubiquitous flying top hat/ bowler hat lights. It's a lame attempt to get the London look. Pizzetti, Reuben sandwich, ham and cheese croquet (sic), tiramisu: you could be almost anywhere at an Arrow that fails to hit the bullseye.

Hotel Pullman London St. Pancras, 100 - 110 Euston Road NW1 2AJ 7666 9000 http://www.accorhotels.com

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

London Cocktail Week 2013

It’s back! From 7th - 13th October LCW celebrates the city’s status as World Cocktail Capital with a week of masterclasses, cool events, pop-ups and samplings. What’s more London’s best bars will be offering selected cocktails for just £4 to those with an LCW official wristband. For full details of what’s on and to get your wristband (priced £10) visit http://www.diffordsguide.com/london-cocktail-week and collect it at the LCW Ketel One  hub in WC2 

With 160 + bars taking part, you’re spoilt for choice but you’ll find me snarfing £4 ‘tails at these fine watering holes: Nola, Callooh Callay EC2; 5CC E2; Dabbous, Purl, London Cocktail Club, The Player, The Pink Chihuahua,The Blind Pig all in W1; Trailer Happiness, Lonsdale W11; Bunga Bunga SW11; Christopher’s, Dirty Martini WC2; Village East, Aqua Shard SE1; The Gilbert Scott,  Shaker and Co NW1; Barrio North N1; The Loft SW4; Eclipse SW5; House of Tippler SE 22. 

GNH Bar, King's Cross

Located in Cubitt’s elegant Victorian crescent, once grand, The Great Northern Hotel at King's Cross station had fallen on hard times when I first visited it aeons ago. My godmother had arranged to meet me there after I'd come off the Flying Scotsman from Edinburgh. A former Bluebell Girl, she wafted in, fashionably late, in a cloud of Sobranie smoke and Mitsouko, glamourous as ever in a vintage topaz shantung silk swing-back coat and colour-matched kid kitten heels. All Kim Novak chic, she looked seriously out of place in the terminally depressed, shabby hotel lounge. Over afternoon tea - all chipped cups, sad curled up sulphuric egg and salad cream sandwiches and Elastoplast pink stale fondant fancies nobody could remotely fancy - she reminisced how the place had been an elegant spot for brandy blazers with boyfriends back in her glamourous high-kicking prime. Fast forward to 2013, I'm invited back for the Great Northern's re-launch. After a £40 million refurbishment, is it really once again a hotel fit for a (similarly regenerated) major London railway terminus? Its £300+ per night rooms sure look smart; there's a handsome brasserie, Plum + Spilt Milk, and, at street level, a new lounge that reckons itself  ‘a railway bar without rival in Europe.’ Ah! Somebody send GNH's marketing bods an InterEurope Railcard! Compared to Alter Wartesaal at Cologne's main station, say, or all spell-binding gilded Belle Époque opulence, Le Train Bleu at Paris's Gare De Lyon - to name but two railway grandees that might contest their hubristic claim - faux Art deco, mirrored ceilings, glitzy glass chandeliers and twee drinks presentation feels slightly small town and passé - an impression not helped by (sweet)  staff in black cling mini-dresses looking like the girls backing  Robert Palmer in his iconic Addicted To Love video, and a housey soundtrack my style arbiter date describes as 'like the wrong bit of Ibiza... in 2003.' Cocktails such as Portobello gin Northern Sour, and Woodford Reserve cardamom and smoked pineapple stir, 1854, are fair enough at £9, but an off-menu request for something mezcal-based elicits 'what's mezcal?' in reply from one friendly amateur barman. As for the bar food, let's hope Mark Sargeant - drafted in to oversee it, I'm told - had no hand in lame launch night canapes. If you're King's Cross bound, drop in: anything is preferable to the catering on East Coast's trains but if you're looking for a London railway bar without rival, try the gorgeous Gilbert Scott at St. Pancras.

King’s Cross N1C 4TB 3388 0800 http://gnhlondon.com/ 

The Gilbert Scott, St Pancras

After a reccie when it first launches, I like to properly test drive any new bar after a couple of months; time enough for any fine tuning. The beguiling bar at The Gilbert Scott, Marcus Wareing’s ‘British brasserie’ located in the refurbished Pre-Raphaelite fantasy château de St Pancras, purrs along like a top of the range Jaguar on cruise control. It helps that it inhabits one of London’s most magical rooms, as ravishing as a Rossetti redhead bathed in a seductively shimmery golden glow. Seamless service delivers top drawer drinks: my date could be falling for Pot Poire (pear-flavoured Grey Goose, Earl Grey tea, lavender, lemon and bitters), so she necks three, just to be sure. Currently worth investigating on an ‘evolving’ list, are ginny joys 1873 (£9) and Queen Mother’s Cocktail: Bombay Sapphire, Bénédictine, rhubarb, lemon, Champagne and a slug of the old dear’s favourite, Dubbonet (sic). Me being me, I’ll inevitably find fault somewhere. At this level, if I call for a Tanqueray Gibson, I don’t expect|: ‘Oh, we don’t have any cocktail onions.’ Also, the acoustics can be deeply 'Wareing': I mistake an over-sauced blonde baggage’s incessant giggling for a yappy bored chihuahua. End of gripe. If you’re at St Pancras, bodyswerve its bigger Booking Hall Bar and travel first class with Marcus.

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Rd NW1 7278 3888 http://www.thegilbertscott.co.uk/