Saf, Shoreditch

Saf

152-154 Curtain Road

Shoreditch

London EC2A 3AT

http://www.safrestaurant.co.uk/

Kina Lillet

You may be surprised, dear readers, to learn that your esteemed Editrix is in fact a vegetarian.  Perhaps that's why I'm so very fond of horseradish vodka.  Given said vegetarianism, I'd been meaning to eat at Saf for ages.  I'm sure the food is delicious, a veritable den of veggie food porn, and though I'm not proud to admit it I've not yet made it past the bar.

Though the restaurant is light and airy, the bar looks a bit like one of those California juice delis where mothers with over-active thyroids pop in after their 6am jog for a wheat grass shot with a vitamin C boost.  Do not let this trifling detail put you off.  The cocktails are like that horrible American film about Wills and Kate: impossible to resist and utterly delectable.

I'm with Margie Rita - who's still smarting from our last outing to Lounge Bohemia - but I worry not for I know what the barmen at Saf are capable of.  Margie plumps for a Tomaso, which sounds like some sort of tomato based drink, but is in fact comprised of white rum, lemon, mint, basil, a splash of prosecco, and a slosh of Galliano Balsamico. Smoooooooth.

I try Rebecca, Rebecca - Couvoisier Exclusif, homemade candied grapefruit syrup, Kummel, Aperol, a dash of orange bitters, delightfully garnished with a lemon peel sprinkled with fennel seeds - which is also wonderfully smooth, so much so that I'm convinced it's just freshly squeezed guava juice not booze.

But by seconds we're feeling rather light headed and so Margie opts for the silliest sounding cracker on the menu, "What happens in Amsterdam...", which though ridiculously named drinks scrumptiously, all ginny honey and ginger. I ask the bartender to make me his favourite drink on the current menu, the Charlie Chaplin, which turns out to be the best drink of the evening: sloe gin, creme de apricot, and fresh lime juice.  Simple but superb.  Who needs meat, after all, when fruit and vegetables make such delicious drinks.

Bar 92, Fitzrovia

Bar 92

92-94 Wigmore Street

London

W1U 3RD 

http://bar92.com/

Kina Lillet

There’s something really quite offensive about the typical review of a cocktail bar. Nine times out of ten the ‘description’ is pilfered from a press statement, hence the similarities in so many reviews: ‘Oh my god. So there I was walking down [insert name of street one would be unlikely to ever randomly walk down] when all of a sudden what did I spy but a lil’ old cocktail bar, my oh my. I then went in to taste, in strict chronological order the two comp drinks I was allocated by the bar’s PR. Drink one was divine, drink two utterly delish. You must all go to [insert absurd bar name here] immediately.’

Dreadful?

Dreadful.

Anyway, I digress. I’m going straight. I’m the editor of this here review and I’m here to review. And not just any old bar either. This is Bar 92. Helpfully the bar’s address, capacity and name are all exactly the same. I’ll leave you to decide whether that’s clever or lazy.

To the task at hand!

Unpleasentries: 

1. This bar is ugly. 
2. This bar has ostrich-leather sofas. 
3. 1 is not necessarily because of 2. 
4. The food is rather nondescript.

I could go on about lack of atmosphere and zombie serving staff, but given that customer service in London is atrocious as a rule and most bar owners think atmosphere can be bought at John Lewis, this bar has one thing going for it that many others lack.

And that, dear readers, is a damn fine bartender (DFB).

I don’t wish to name names, but too many bars – including some I am unashamedly fond of frequenting – privilege theatrics over taste buds. Being a DFB, Omkar Kalaskar, the man behind Bar 92’s unusual menu, knows that the way to a lady editor’s heart is through her lips, not her eyes. Perhaps it’s because the bar is empty and Kalaskar has time to flick and swish each of our drinks into a composition so perfectly balanced it would have made Mozart green-eyed with envy, but Hallelujah, what perfection! what balance! what deliciousness is this!

We drink: 

1. Ginger and Thyme Sour  (vodka, lime, and sugar, muddled with ginger, thyme, and egg white). 
2. After Hours (mango juice, amaretto, dark rum, and coconut cream). 
3. The 92 (tequila, galliano, passoa, passion fruit puree, lime juice, cranberry, champagne). 
4. Yellow Magpie (more rum!, fresh ginger, lychee)

Every sip is so lip-smackingly classy, so perfectly poised, so refreshingly different that I never want to leave. I want to stay and imbibe one after another of the marvellous creations emerging from behind the bar of this man with a mind like Einstein and a palate like Marie Antoinette. But alas, Jerry and I have quaffed our drinks allocation and the PRs are pissed off I called their bar ugly. So we leave.

Let them try and keep me away.

Lounge Bohemia, Shoreditch

Lounge Bohemia

1 Great Eastern Street

London

EC2A 3EJ

Kina Lillet

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

If Lounge Bohemia were a sentence, not a bar, it'd be in with a prize-winning shot at the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Prize for rubbish writing. Like Bulwer-Lytton’s original line, Lounge Bohemia is atmospheric but overblown. I’d like to be drawn in, to be captivated by Paul Tvaroh’s establishment and by his cocktails, naturally, but while the ambience is just right and the menu-cum-book is a nicely observed detail, the drinks are all smoke and mirrors. I hate to resort to such a tawdry metaphor, but given that Lounge Bohemia is more concerned with process than pleasure, I feel less guilty for poo-pooing the watering hole of this would-be wizard of booze.

I telephone to make an appointment, for an appointment is necessary. The conversation proceeds as expected, but before replacing the receiver, I am informed that neither suits nor office wear are permitted at this bar. Given that most everyone I know, even the dickhead, creative media types, work in an office, I wonder whether my cashmere and leather constitutes “office wear”.

I meet Margie Rita and we fearlessly order round one. Margie opts for the Lavender Crème Brûlée, a drink one of my new flatmates described to me as being like, “an orgasm in a glass”... The LCB is delicious. It tastes like a lavender-flavoured crème brûlée. So far, so good. At the recommendation of our delightful hostess, I’ve ordered the bar’s signature drink: the Sgt. Pepper. With black pepper vodka, elderflower liqueur and cordial and lemon juice, it tastes neither like black pepper nor like elderflower, but rather bizarrely like freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice.

Next Margie orders a Kaid Sling, which is probably supposed to taste like an adults-only Shirley Temple, but instead comes across all sickly sweet and bubble gum. My Holy Smoke is “leather infused Courvoisier VSOP Exclusif, frankincense and myrrh smoke”. The drink arrives in a small flask nesting in a Czech bible.  There’s an upturned glass resting on a tray. I’m instructed to turn the smoke-filled glass over and pour in the Courvoisier. It smells like a priest and tastes like sin. Actually, it tastes of a passable single malt, but who cares.

Our last drinks are the most bizarre: a Porcini-tini and a Bubble Bath Martini. Do porcini mushrooms, vodka, crème de cacao, condensed milk and salt sound like a match made in heaven? This is Tvaroh at his most Blumenthal-esque and I don’t like The Fat Duck either.

The BBM was a blend of lychee liqueur, lavender and poppy seed vodka, with lychee, lavender and rose bubbles. Frankly, it was revolting: like soapy, liquidised turkish delight.  Its only redeeming feature was a hilarious miniature rubber ducky face down in this undrinkable drink.

I later find out that Tvaroh is teetotal and doesn’t drink a lick of booze. How utterly baffling. Why on earth would a man who doesn’t drink alcohol open a bar? It certainly helps to solve the puzzle of this place, though: the drinks at Lounge Bohemia taste like they were created by someone who likes neither cocktails nor the people who like to drink them.

Avoid the magic tricks. Find a bar that likes people who like to drink.

Purl, Marylebone

Purl

50/54 Blandford Street

London

W1U 7HX

Jerry Boam

Hallowe'en is a time for tales. And in the Boam dynasty there is one tale that haunts each and every Blakeyed step, from birth unto the brink of death; a spectre that pursues every first-born without remorse, a dog that hounds us toward untimely ends and, for all we know, beyond that moment of supposed rest. No amount of claret has ever been able to quench this silent shadow; no amount, that is, until now. I, the seventh Boam to feel the touch of the icy-fingered fiend, tell my tale with darting eyes and pen a-tremble.

My story begins under the streets of Marylebone, yards from the garret dwellings of Great Uncle Boozy Boam; down cast iron steps we tread, and into the gloom of Purl. 'We' is Ms Kina Lillet and I, seeking refuge from the cold afternoon on this Eve of all the Hallows. We seat ourselves on an ageing Chesterfield. We peruse an ancient, yellowing page of menu. Out from among the bricks and cobwebs, candles aglow in corners, steps our ghostly waitress. All in black, she totters to take our order.

Whilst we dither and decide, I sense something amiss. Why does she stare at me so? It's as if, somehow, she knows me. Unnerved, I order drinks. Demurely she departs toward the bar, and to a trio of oddly attired drinks concocters. They seem familiar, like twisted Boam portraits through the ages; all slicing, chopping, pouring, measuring. Their eyes flicker periodically towards me, and glitter and smirk. Smoke gushes forth in torrents.

With a shudder, I turn toward Ms Lillet. I can't hide my fear, not from her.

“What ever is the matter Mr Boam? You look so dreadfully pale all of a sudden.”

“Oh 'tis nothing Ms Lillet,” I parry bravely. “And do call me Jerry. I insist upon it.”

“If you say so, Jerry. It's frightfully scary though in here isn't it,” she grins with glee. “Why don't you tell me a story?”

And so I tell the only story the Boams can ever tell, the fated story of the Boam curse. “It all began,” I begin....

...our waitress returns with our drinks; drinks which match both the day and the tale: the otherworldly festival of Hallowe'en, and the tale about to stutter forth from pinkly trembling lips. Ms Lillet sips a Pumpkin Pie Flip, a creamy Bourbon affair with lip-zinging nutmeg sherbet around the rim and a 'Chicken Egg' lurking deep within. I have something entitled Mr Hyde's Fixer Upper. The presentation – in a wax-sealed glass flask – beguiles, but the drink seems a little peculiar: cola syrup has never been suited to the Boam palette.

We chat, Ms Lillet and I, and soon we order further from our attentive waitress. She seems to be sliding into familiarity. Might I know her from some past dalliance? Thankfully the thought drifts away as more drinks arrive: for Ms Lillet, the Mummified Elixir cloaked in bloodied bandages; I, meanwhile, sup the Werewolf's Tincture; in effect an elaborately presented Negroni. The Negroni of course is a Boam favourite, and this one rather raises the spirits. Supplemented by 'Full Moon' pickled onions and 'Graveyard Mist' it's both omen and memento...

Ms Lillet leans towards me, her hand brushes my raven-black lapel. She whispers close. “Continue, Jerry, your tale.”

“It all began,” I begin again, “in the days of Viscount Balthazar Boam. He was, as you know, a monumental carouser. Nothing, nothing escaped his rapacious whim – money of course being of no object. He was known up and down St James', throughout London, from the bedrooms of princesses to foul dens of the most base iniquities. The tales of his escapades could fill a book. Indeed, it's said that such a book was written by one of his callously jilted mistresses. And here lies the origin of the curse.”

“The curse?”

“Indeed. For Balthazar, it's said, had lost interest in this mistress and had her bricked up deep in the cellars beneath one of his properties. For days she screamed, for days she wept. But to no avail: she'd been left, she knew, to die.”

“How awful,” whispers Ms Lillet softly. Is she, could she be, smiling? She seems to take some strange pleasure from this vile family tale, a tale I've never told in full before. But something compels me to continue. Now, I shall never need tell it again...

“Her mind dark with avenging rage, this unknown mistress compiled a full inventory of every sin committed by the profligate Balthazar. It took a full day and a full night to compile the list, a list that would make the devil himself quake in awe and horror. She wrote, so the story goes, on old parchment left in the cellars long-since abandoned. Instead of ink she used her own blood, delicately drawn from her snow-white upper arm. Rumour has it she survived for weeks, slowly losing energy, weight, flesh; gradually, painfully wasting out of this life, and into the next. Her dying words were the curse – the curse that still haunts the Boams to this day: to die an unknown death, never to be found or buried, never accounted for, never blessed, never freed. The Boams must roam eternal. It is our fate.”

Ms Lillet's tongue caresses her lips, her mouth twisting towards a grin? It must be the remnants of her Elixir, its flavour softly clinging. “But what happened to the parchment?”

“That,” I reply, suddenly struck by the hunger in her greenish grey eyes, “remains a mystery.”

“Perhaps I can help with that.” It's our waitress, suddenly behind me. A chill gust nips the nape of my neck. I notice her upper left arm – gashed and raked, ancient wounds still raw and red. She grins a manic, blazing grin. And turns over our drinks menu – upon the other side, in darkly crimson scrawl, an unmistakable catalogue of sin.

I turn toward Ms Lillet, “Kina!” The light flickers. Her hair glints grey.

Purl. Here, in this bricked up family cellar, I remain. The curse is lifted. The curse has just begun.

69 Colebrooke Row, Angel

69 Colebrooke Row

London

N1 8AA

Kina Lillet

A bad start.

The first time I passed through the unassuming glass doors at 69 Colebrooke Row was for a rendez-vous with an old flame.  I was reluctant to see him again, given the amusingly disastrous nature of our split, but consented provided that he agreed to the following terms: 1) not a word about our relationship would pass his lips and 2) we met at Colebrooke Row.

An amusing story.

I hadn’t even had a chance to digest my surroundings when he began to proffer a post-mortem relationship analysis and apology.  Needless to say, I wasn’t interested and so for him, the evening ended badly, early, and in floods of tears.  I, on the other hand, parked myself at the diminutive bar and began to drink my way through the entire menu.  Though I didn’t make it quite to the end that first evening, I’ve subsequently sipped every drink on the menu.

There’s something about a lone lady sitting at the bar that softens the heart of even the steeliest of bartenders, so I was well looked after.  But it wasn’t until I proved my dedication to the palette by deducing that the orange blossom flavouring used in their Almond Ramos – a crazy concoction based on the Ramos gin fizz but made with orange blossom and almond, thickened to a whipped cream consistency with nitrous oxide canisters – was the same flavouring used in Ladurée’s delicious orange blossom macaroons, that the world of Tony Conigliaro was my oyster. Well, almost. Due to teething problems with the fabrication of the shells, I didn’t actually get to sample Tony’s take on the Prairie Oyster, but it sounded inspired: a tomato sphere “yolk” floating in a spiced vodka cocktail, slurped down all in one go.

To compensate for the sheer awfulness of regaling me with tales of such marvels without actually allowing me to taste one, my friendly bartender pulled a bottle from behind the bar and whispered, “you must try this”. “This” was one of the most intense flavours to ever pass my lips: a house-distilled horseradish vodka.  It was like drinking liquid wasabi. Colebrooke Row uses this essence of horseradish to construct the definitive Bloody Mary.  And I know my Bloody Marys. The composite parts are arranged neatly in front of me – the horseradish vodka, house made celery salt, house bitters and an incredibly potent black pepper tincture – before being mixed with thick tomato juice. Like a puppy is not just for Christmas, a CR Bloody Mary is not just for brunch.  This drink is far too dangerous for Eggs Florentine.

While the menu changes seasonally, staples remain: CR’s take on Campari and Soda adds a dash of grapefruit bitters and their Bellini pairs green apple puree with almond blossom and prosecco. One of my favourite drinks on the menu’s current incarnation, the Spitfire, is made with CR house Cognac and Crème de Peche.  It drinks like a smoky rainbow. Sounds ludicrous. Tastes delicious.

Sitting at this bar, you really come to appreciate the theatrics of good cocktail making. The dry ice martini is particularly diverting. On a more recent trip, my companion and I went out for a cigarette and came back to find our drinks overflowing with smoke onto the bar.  It’s difficult to remember what they tasted like, to be honest. I was far too excited by the curlicues of smoke running through my fingers.

While I haven’t perched at every bar in London nor supped every cocktail in the Big Book of Booze, I have done enough of both to know that 69 Colebrooke Row is something special.

A happy ending, then.

HIX, Soho

HIX

66-70 Brewer Street

London

W1F 9UP

Kina Lillet

I stood in front of a heavy wooden door on Brewer Street on a sunny Saturday afternoon and looked forlornly at a heavy wooden door separating me from HIX.

"It looks closed," I said glumly to my associate, Jerry Boam, "what kind of drinking den is closed on a Saturday afternoon?" Luckily I thought to try the door and when I pushed on it, it swung satisfyingly open. Because I knew the bar was downstairs I wasted no time chatting to the overly inquisitive staff on the door or even looking around the ground-floor restaurant. I’ve eaten at the St John Street operation and I know the food is mouth watering: get me to the cocktail list.

At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves with a most agreeable situation: a beautiful bar and it was ours, all ours. I wanted to move in. Literally. We fell into plush chesterfields at one end of the room and sighed at the sight of the cocktail menu. After considerable perusal of the entirely too wordy menu, JB decided not to stretch himself with one of the more adventurous looking delights and plumped for old faithful. By which I mean he had a Negroni. Which tasted like a Negroni.

I, on the other hand, was craving an Amaretto Sour, but for the benefit of you dear reader, took the bullet to find out what HIX’s cocktail wizard was capable of. I ordered a Forbidden Sour. Once I got over the inanity of ordering such a ridiculously-named drink, I could appreciate the subtlety of the thing. Initial impressions of the drink - composed of Julian Temperley's Apple eau de vie and Galliano L'Authentico - were favourable, but an unexpected anise seed after taste gave me pause. The next round saw me cave in and order that Amaretto Sour with he-the-next-chesterfield-over sticking with the Negronis. He said they were delicious. I wasn’t interested. The Amaretto Sour was predictably satisfying: sweet, but lip-puckeringly sour. Honestly, I could drink them all day.

Given that a rather large dish of cobnuts appeared on our table out of nowhere, top marks for bar snacks.

HIX is the sort of place I’d like to live in. It’s like a heavenly IKEA. You go in; you lose track of time; you forget there’s natural light outside; you can’t find your way out. But you don’t give a damn, because the barman is just about to bring you another Amaretto Sour.