Joyeux Bordel, Shoreditch

What's with the French? Sewer-minded Johhny Foreigner will insist on opening London joints named after knocking shops. If it's not Le Chabannais (see previous post), it's Joyeux Bordel. At the risk of sounding (heaven forbid!) like Shami Chakrabati, I doubt any emaciated, heroin-hooked hooker, trafficked from some former Balkan hellhole, held hostage by a psycho pimp, will find much 'joyeux' about her enslavement in a Berwick Street bordello. What's that? 'Joyeux bordel', in this context, roughly translates as 'a jolly old mess'? Ah, I see. Given the potency of this new bar's universally fine but fatal fixes, 'jolly old mess' might jolly well describe your demeanour after a serious session within. A dishy, dark Deco-inspired dive-deluxe, it's the latest from Pierre-Charles Cros and Co whose other high-end Gallic gaffs include Chinatown’s ECC http://tinyurl.com/oh98en2, Covent Garden’s Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels http://tinyurl.com/l7ubopu and a string of Parisian hotties such as Prescription, Beef Club and Hotel Grand Pigalle. Priced from £9, well turned-out temptation includes the likes of Suze and chilli-spiked gin martini; Black Beard (two rums, Aperol, Fernet Branca and custom-distilled falernum); a mezcal and pink grapefruit margarita; and the bar’s rye and pear liqueur, chocolately, bittersweet eponymous house signature.  Soundtracked by vintage vinyl, this sophisticated hole-up is aimed at discerning flâneurs, if not Shoreditch's weekend invasion of Joey Essex boys, Hummer-borne hens and Tango-tanned slappers - their screeching like, diplomatically dismissed by JB's Monsieur le doorman, s’il vous plaît!

147 Curtain Road EC2A 3QE http://www.joyeuxbordel.com

(adapted from my review for Square Meal) 

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)

Avalon, Shoreditch (CLOSED see BARRIO EAST)

The name - Avalon - suggests this Shoreditch bar/ club/ live music venue will be a Pre-Raphaelite vision of the court of King Arthur. Arthur Daley more like, based on furniture that might have been snapped-up by the dodgy dealer in a clearance sale at a convicted Balkan warlord’s villa. Naff baroque tables, crushed velvet upholstery and silvered thrones are bizarrely juxtaposed with decor that implies a Chinese restaurant in Chernobyl. Lit red, punters assume a weird radioactive sweet and sour sauce glow. But like the similarly tacky Punk in Soho, such disparate duff-ness gels, creating a bonkers backdrop for the debauchery expected of its target ‘Ditch bitch style junkie clientele that, at tonight’s press party, includes an androgynous colossus wearing a lobster as a fascinator. His look is more doolally than Dali and with promised dim sum slow to appear, I’m tempted to seize the Mad Hatter’s crustacean and boil the bleeder in a hot tub downstairs. Hot tub? Oh, yes. Currently unfinished, a heroically seedy basement - think Dirk Diggler’s Boogie Nights filmed in a Burmese brothel - will incorporate mosaic plunge pools and similar spa malarkey. 'Drinks? Oh, go on, then! Two Blue Lagoons and one of your signature ‘Karma Sip-tra’ martinis, please.'  As we leave, a queue forms outside;  Avalon is already the stuff of local legend.

141 -143 Shoreditch High St E1    tel 3222 0530