Adventure, Covent Garden

A door gorilla eyes me with suspicion. I'm outside Adventure in Covent Garden. En route to a bit of a do,  dressed in black tie, I'm keen to have a quick butcher's. Is the suturnine one about to warn me I'm way too chic for what was once backpacker pit, Bok, a place guaranteed to 'gie you the boak', as the say in Bo'ness and Brechin? Whatever. He makes no attempt to deter me, so preoccupied is he with his own thoughts. Pensive, miserable, Is he wondering why he ever left his reassuringly humdrum life in Dresden, Droylsden, Drabsville South Africa or some other dump whose residents dream of London's gold pavements to be stood on those very same sidewalks for whatever sum he's earning per hour? Adventure, it transpires, is a new uptown adventure for a trio of similarly-named south London bars. The basement bunker boasts two bars in a long vaulted industrial-style corridor with high banquette seating. The overall impression is one of drinking in a glorified London Underground tunnel - the Party Line, perhaps. The price of  a cocktail - nigh on £10 - is about the same as for a return to Finchley Central these days, only with much better customer service thrown in: who'd have ever thought it?  The place is clearly a popular post work kick-back, thanks to special deals and happy hour until 7 pm when £9.50 bags a brace of cocktails from an unexpectedly interesting list that runs to apple martini and Uncle Vanya (an Absolut vodka, crème de mure and sours mix). I'm not sure who'd want the frozen black Irish and the Malibu, chocolate, nut and creamy confection that is Umpa Lumpa.  Willy Wonka’s vertically-challenged helpers are the only ones not at risk of banging their heads on Adventure’s low brick walls. Wines from £15 mean the adventure continues until midnight. Will I be hurrying back? Based on this photo of a typical cross-section of customers; what do you reckon?

20 Bedford Street WC2 07739 325180 www.adventurebar.co.uk

Adapted from a review at www.squaremeal.co.uk.

See even more like this at www.metro.co.uk 

Parlour at Sketch , Mayfair

Mourad (Momo) Mazouz’s Sketch is a Mayfair classic and cool as you like. The restaurant-cum-art gallery's twinkly Glade bar and UFO-like East bar are heavenly but, for me, the Parlour is still one of London's sexiest rooms, a wittily curated postmodern des res capably staffed by stylish lookers. A trip to the venue’s spookily-lit, surreal 'egg' loos is an adventure that always gives me goose pimples: intent on ‘the old ultra-violence’, will the droogs from A Clockwork Orange beat me to a bloody pulp against the pristine white expanse of Sketch's sinister sweeping staircase (left)? Or will I inflict that on myself, keeling over, face first, pie-eyed on the bar’s cracking new cocktails? Fields of Joy, an inspired muddle of Smirny Black, pear purée, vin blanc, grapes and Kasteel Cru rosé; Rosemary Martini, an acquired taste, admittedly, that could double as alco-marinade for a joint of lamb; and Bagheera, a Snow Leopard, lemon, lime, ginger and basil Collins that is so damned attractive, I may just marry it. At £13, these babes ain't cheap but compared to overpriced slurry peddled in numerous ‘destination’ bars in W1, I call it investment drinking. Arrive pre-9 pm to ensure entry and don’t wear a white shirt, Sta-Prest, DMs, braces, bowler hat, codpiece and a cosh please. 

9 Conduit St. W1 7659 4500 http://www.sketch.uk.com/

Can The Canned Cocktail?

Trending now, alco-juggernaut Diageo’s ready-to-serve cocktails aim to cash in on cash-strapped lushes' move away from hanging out in bars to tippling at home. New, in Spain and Greece (whose natives could both use a stiff drink since their economies are even more f***ed than our own), is a pre-mixed Manhattan, one of various 'cocktails' in a can. Not yet available here, the Smirnoff's press office sent me over their cosmopolitan and 'vodka mojito' pre-mixes, sold in silver shaker-style bottles, to road test in their absence. Apparently these are already available in UK supermarkets; not something I'd know about as the staff take on Tesco in the trenches on my behalf. It beats me how a product that, by necessity, must have a long shelf life can hope to capture the transience of freshly muddled mint, key to a decent mojito - whose base ingredient ain't, in any case, vodka - let alone the notoriously volatile zing of newly squeezed citrus fruits  essential to other classics. The Smirnoff cosmo was just about bearable in a kind of adult alco-poppy way but their other effort was pure Vomjito, synthetic and horribly reminiscent of the sort of flavoured rinse my dentist would try out on me after root canal work. Still, anything that promotes cocktailing in general has to be a positive. As Hirondelle and Le Piat d’Or were stepping stones that led baby boomers towards more sophisticated vino, perhaps Diageo’s tipples will spawn a generation obsessed with tracking down the perfect Perfect Manhattan. Roll on the day every village boasts its own Callooh Callay, eh?