Smith and Wollensky, Strand

Almost forty years after serving its first customers in Manhattan, this solidly conservative American surf and turf restaurant chain has chosen London for its maiden overseas outpost. Occupying two floors of the art deco Adelphi building off The Strand, its interior looks to have been installed around the time Hoover won the White House. Cocktail fanciers have a choice of two substantial bars in the familiar handwriting of the daddy of upscale rooms, Martin Brudnizki (The Ivy, Scott’s, Scarfes Bar, Jackson and Rye etc). On balance I prefer the downstairs bar; taking up one end of a vast art nouveau / Tiffany-inspired gleaming, expensively-upholstered expanse. In the braggart US of A, things are done on a much bigger scale; hence, 100 ml spirit measures in mighty Manhattans and martinis at £16. Notable American classics include sazerac and aviation, while kirsch Cosmopolitan; Breakfast At Tiffany’s (a Chase marmalade vodka Champagne cocktail) and Ready Aim Fire (a tequila and mezcal pineapple sour) are not exactly a snip at £13 -that's around $20 - a price that would buy you  a large prawn cocktail at their Midtown Manhattan restaurant. Around 30 wines by the glass include Smith and Wollensky’s own label Napa red blend - a rampaging beast that comes in at a head-bludgeoning 14.5% abv. Bar menu standouts include yellowfin tuna tartare; sirloin carpaccio and Cajun gorgonzola burger. It's all very grown-up and corporate. Brooks Brothers suits will dig..preferably on company expenses. It feels like the sort of place US presidential candidate/ chump, Donald Trump, would have treated the winning task team on The Apprentice USA to a blow-out banquet; but will Smith and W's Yankee swagger wow discerning, spoilt-for-choice Londoners? Let's ask Jay Rayner. 'The latest big-name steakhouse to cross the pond. Pity it didn't sink on the way' mutters grouchy of The Guardian, contemplating 'an insipid Moscow Mule served in a stupid brass mug with a thin plastic straw.' Ouch!
The Adelphi Building, 1 - 11 John Adam Street WC2N 6HT 7321 6007 http://www.smithandwollensky.co.uk

one two two, Mayfair

(now)

Will new cocktail lounge, one two two, be overflowing with filles de joie, I wonder? For wasn't Le Chabanais - the name of the bistro above whose chef is Inaki Aizpitarte (or not, according to Twitter gossips a mere two weeks after I visit) - once  Paris's most infamous bordello? From his Pigalle garret, my ancient syphilitic artiste copain confirms it was...until spoilsport French politicians - many of whom had happily enthusiastically embraced its inmates - closed all 'maisons closes' in 1946, branding them cesspits of bourgeois degeneracy. Pre-War, Le Chab accommodated painters, poets, hommes d'affaires, vaudeville vedettes, gangsters, dandies, breast-fondling barons and c***-licking counts - not to mention the odd Hollywood star who dared to swing bi' (bonjour Marlene Dietrich!) Grainy photos reveal décor as outrageously baroque as the appetites of its roué regulars. Not so, one two two, a  ferociously chic, dark, Bauhaus-inspired bunker where streamlined Art Deco ousts frills and furbelows. Its handsome focal point is a priapic prow-like counter, its back bar's sleek metal shelves stacked with high-end hooch and classic French apéritifs Byrrh, Picon, Lillet, Dolin and Gentiane. Run by one of the restaurant's co-owners, Franck Audoux -  a concombre-cool, (or gratingly Gallic, depending on your take on cocky French coqs) beau gosse - the bar heroes retro rinses that reference recipes popularised by hot-shot bartenders of the 1920’s/ 30’s - e.g. Frank Meier, for over 25 years in charge at The Paris Ritz. Try Tunnel, a negroni made with No.3 gin and both French and Italian vermouths; pineapple-infused Mezan rum sour, Barbaresque; or La Vie En Rose - a tequila and cherry liqueur fix named after the Edith Piaf chanson, the angsty warbler whose grand'mère (like nine out of ten of her contemporaries, it seems) reportedly also ran a knocking shop. Here, £14.50 - a price that would get you a blow-job down a cold Calais alley - secures Bertie, a cider brandy and Bénédictine Champagne cocktail named after the future Edward VII who, as Prince of Wales, had a penchant for bathing in Champagne at Le Chab' owner Madame Kelly's tub, a fantastical vision in the form of a sphinx (pictured). As a teenager on the loose à Paris, some of my more educative soirées began over kirs royales paid for by kindly grandes horizontales, Brassaï-esque brasses off-duty in Montparnasse brasseries. Given the parade of high class hoops-for-hire (or 'celebrities' as some glossy mags euphemistically refer to some of their number) who feather their fannies at the appropriately named Mount Street's designer boutiques, I'd hoped to be in debauched good company tonight. Few in number, my fellow tipplers appear to be of upstanding moral character. One two two? Tasty 'tails, but tame if you're drawn to wanton women on the game.
 8 Mount Street, W1 7491 7078   http://www.lechabanaislondon.com/

(then)

Fontaine's, Stoke Newington

"You look like an old man cut-down!" My father's withering assessment of my attempt at a young Frank Sinatra hits Havana. To his Austin Reed-attuned eyes, dressing in some Yank's cast-off 1940s cream tux, midnight blue Oxford bags and jazzy rayon palm print shirt was anathema - no matter that, days before, L'Uomo Vogue had snapped me in said look for a 'Londra Trend' feature. Hard to imagine now, but wearing "smelly", "old", second-hand clothes, some from an Edinburgh junk shop run by Mrs Doubtfire (yes, she inspired Robin William's character), as I first did in my student days, was then considered downright weird. 'Vintage' is, of course, big business today, but where to show off when you're channelling Ava Gardner as Gilda, if you get it right or Father Ted's Mrs Doyle if you don't? Try Fontaine's, a new retro-styled bar whose unofficial PR is, tellingly, http://www.diaryofavintagegirl.com 's Fleur McGerr. All 1930s cream upholstery, Odeon foyer art deco with bronze Egyptian palms, here's a film set for a duet featuring Fred and Ginger. Appropriately period cocktails include Aviation, Clover Club and Singapore Sling. Hollywood Hills silver screen era, silver tray staples include oysters Kilpatrick, smoked salmon and caviar blinis and Bellinis. In a tiki bar downstairs, the vibe is more Marlene Dietrich sings Hot Voodoo - hers, a lurid look that will get you odd looks at your local All Bar One. Vamping up, vintage-style, for cocktail hour is to be encouraged in these super-dull Superdry days. Choosing an appropriate backdrop is key. This Stokey belter fits the bill.
176 Stoke Newington High Road N16 7UY https://www.facebook.com/fontaineslondon 

The Glenn Miller Bar, Marylebone

On the hottest night of the year,  sweating like a glass blower's arse as Lily Savage would say, I am not a happy bunny to be on Oxford Street, squaring up to pro-Palestine protestors besieging Marks and Spencer and competing for pavement space with the locust-like swarms of rich Chinese out to strip Selfridges bare of Balenciaga, Gucci and Vuitton. I'm headed to what has been sold to me by its PRs as 'an evening of cocktail decadence for modern gents and glam girls.' It's in aid of the 'newly revamped' (as in 3 years ago, a staff member will subsequently tell me) Glenn Miller Bar, 'named after the famous American jazz "singer."' Glenn sang? Who knew? The bar is in the Thistle Marble Arch, a hotel I have never set foot in, but have heard talk of from my (glam girl) godmother who would rendezvous here, in shantung silk gown and matching shoes, for a cocktail soirée with her West End stagey mates in the place's 60s prime as The Mount Royal. The old dame - the hotel and, indeed, my late-godmother - was clearly a looker in her day: inlaid marble floors and Art Deco styling hint at a grand past. Alas, like Glenn in his plane en route to Paris in 1944, this pile mysteriously disappeared off fashionable London's radar around the same time Vera Lynn did. Tacky floral arrangement, tedious muzak that sure ain't Glenn's swinging big band, hideous lilac overhead lighting, and motley Millerabilia aside (I've seen better at car boot sales); I rather like this retro-style watering hole away from the crazy fray of Primark, opposite. Cocktails from its new list - the revamp in question? - are being mixed for the half dozen invited hacks that have bothered to pitch up by the personable Andy Pearson who, I'm told, often appears on Something For The Weekend -  a BBC 2 programme that's not something that figures in my idea of an ideal weekend. Aviation (an ironic choice, given Glenn's fate); Clover Club; White Lady; Vesper: what's not to like about a list of classics that replaces a menu that imagined Sex On The Beach and Jack Rogers (Jack Daniel’s grenadine and Coke) would lure sophisticates in? So, if you are ahem, In The Mood for a Manhattan and a club sandwich up Marble Arch way, put on your finest String Of Pearls and pop in. But guys, the clue is in the name; so stick some orchestral class on your stereo system - this, par exemple:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3hsVrGr5Dw
Thistle Marble Arch, Bryanston Street W1H 7EH www.thistle.com/marblearch

Bar Américain, Soho

When the Regent Palace Hotel was demolished, the site's developers promised its basement bar would be carefully packed away and reinstated within the new building. ‘PR twaddle, I thought.  As part of the Atlantic restaurant, it had been a fiercely stylish Beautiful People hangout circa Hugh Grant with Liz Hurley in THAT dress. All softly-lit chrome, frosted glass, dark leather and oaky ethereal gorgeousness, this elegant art deco lounge belonged in an old MGM musical set on a 1930s ocean liner. Joy of joys, it was run by drinks industry legend Dick Bradsell, inventor of Espresso Martini, Treacle, Bramble and the daft-sounding but distinctly doable Snood Murdekin -  future classic cocktails to make a chap dance on the ceiling like Fred Astaire. Bradsell has moved on -  currently to be found at Soho hip pit, The Pink Chihuahua  - but good to their word, the developers - with a little help from David Collins Studio - have indeed recreated Dick's former domain piece-by-lovely-piece. Rebranded Bar Américain, it's a destination den at Corbin  and KIng’s new baby, Zédel. Head downstairs past the Josephine Baker-style cabaret bar, Crazy Coqs, towards the main draw, a buzzy gilded Montparnasse-style brasserie,  swing a right under by the 'vestiare', et voilà - 1932 revisited. My drinking buddy claims it reminds him of the bar scene in The Shining; but any carnage here is likely to be on account of the bar's resident tuxedoed matinée idols' sours, slings and things: Sazerac, The Gatsby and The Calloway (a bourbon, port and fig flip), impeccable at £9.75. My only gripe is that, on two otherwise faultless visits,  the clientele has been less ocean liner more Coach Trip. Time for London’s beau monde to reclaim this grand old girl, surely?

20 Sherwood St W1F 7ED 7734 4888 www.brasseriezedel.com