Ninety Eight Bar and Lounge, Shoreditch

Ninety Eight Bar and Lounge
98 Curtain Road
Shoreditch
London
EC2A 3AF
http://www.ninetyeight-bar-lounge.com/

Abby La Fée

As I descend the cast iron spiral staircase from the street level of 98 Curtain Road, I don’t feel a bit like Alice entering the rabbit hole. As far as I’m aware Alice didn’t have jaded expectations of Wonderland, but I feel certain I know what I’m going to get from this underground Shoreditch bar: low lighting, battered Chesterfield settees, wax-dripped wine bottles and hipsters discussing their next tattoos (“so, like, I think I’m going to get a double helix on my tit with the words ‘there’s no gene for the human spirit’ written underneath, probably in a foreign language ‘cause it looks better like that”).

Well blow me down, how wrong I was. On reaching the bottom of the stairs, I'm met with white walls, marble flooring, fresh cut flowers and a twenty-foot high conservatory, complete with pot-palms and a grand piano. It’s awash with pastel coloured Baroque furniture, vintage perfume bottles, white feathered lampshades and sheepskin rugs.  Not your average 'my sovereign is more ironic than your sovereign' Hoxton haunt. On the table in front of me is a white porcelain elephant with a Smartie tube sticking out of its back. Curioser and curioser.

The bountiful proprietor, Kath Morrell, is straight at my side explaining that the concept behind the bar is ‘fun’. Fun, fun, fun. She introduces me to some novelties:
“Dip your finger in, rub it on yourself, and lick it off”.  She says.
A bold, request, perhaps, but in the spirit of open mindedness I bashfully oblige. Edible candle wax which doubles as a moisturiser, who’d have thought? Love that sweet-grease taste. She also offers me fairy cakes, followed by strawberries dipped in rum and chilli sugar. I inhale some of the chilli powder and ineffectively try to style out my esophageal paroxysms with a spontaneous Horatian Ode. Quite the Tea Party.

I proceed to indelicately set upon the first aptly named tipple, ‘Off in the Clouds', with the relish of a thirsty hound. A martini glass arrives full of towering candy floss, which dissolves as a bright blue concoction of lavender-infused vodka, gin and blue Curacao is poured over it. A vesper it may be, but it tastes like a melted Refresher and white spirit jus. Not cool. My taste buds forgive me, however, when I get my lips around The Country Cottage Sour, a pink-drink of lavender-infused rum, apple and hazelnut; and they're rendered delirious little papillae by my next tryst with the Labito. If you can get past its unfortunately vulval appellation, you'll discover a most wondrous mojito made with lavender-infused rum.

Granted certain flavour and style combinations at Ninety Eight are verging on garish and would undoubtedly illicit a spontaneous ‘quelle horreur’ from the lips of my modest-tasted French mother (she can’t understand American accents and sushi conveyor belts make her seasick). And there are a few ‘okeeeeeeeeeeey’ ornaments (the rooster made of plastic bags is worthy of note here) but that’s part of Ninety Eight’s appeal. Like the decor, the unlikely experimentation with mixology is playful and somewhat nostalgic, contributing to the charm and whimsy of the place. Behind the bar giant perfume bottles hold spirits infused with many weird and wonderful things.

Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting. I reluctantly bid adieu to the Hatter and mount the spiral staircase, a little less gracefully than before.

China Tang at The Dorchester

China Tang at The Dorchester

Park Lane

Mayfair

London

W1K 1QA

http://www.thedorchester.com/china-tang

Glenn Fiddich

“So what’s it really like at the top of Mount Everest?” Ludicrously Hot Date asked me, popping a wasabi peanut into her mouth. As she leaned forward to pick up a replacement, I caught a glimpse of something black and expensive-looking underneath her dress.

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Cold. Snowy.”

“And you got up there totally without oxygen?”

“Well, I…”

“Wow. That is so… I mean, wow.” In went another peanut. Up went my blood pressure.

I stumbled across Ludicrously Hot Date in the personals section of a well-known newspaper’s website. She was naturally blonde, French-Canadian and a qualified masseuse. After years of dating wimpy acupuncturists and yoga teachers, she told potential suitors viewing her profile, she now wanted to meet a real man. Someone who could fix her car without looking at the manual and make a fire in a clearing whatever the weather. Someone born without tear ducts who could demolish one of those huge American-style steaks that flops over the edge of the plate in a single sitting. Someone, in short, who very definitely wasn’t me.

I climb mountains for a living, I wrote, emboldened by four hours of Boxing Day drinking with the retired Royal Marine who lives across the road from Mother Fiddich. And I once killed a deer just by looking at it. Drinks next week?

It was, of course, a joke. I really didn’t think I’d get a reply.

But I did, and in a hog-whimpering panic I suggested subterranean China Tang for our first – and almost certainly last – meeting. Ludicrously Hot Date listed Mad Men amongst her interests, and the place has a fabulously kitsch, Don-Draper-goes-to-Hong-Kong-and-wakes-up-next-to-Miss-Kowloon vibe. There are giant light-up soda siphons and jet-setting businessmen clustered around the bar talking in three-letter acronyms and spirits of truly stupendous quality. It’s also, crucially, very dimly lit.

Having hovered at a discreet distance from us for ten minutes, a waiter wearing trousers that were infinitely better tailored than mine arrived to take our order for cocktails. Ludicrously Hot Date batted her eyelashes at him.

“Surprise me,” she said. “I love surprises. Don’t you, Glenn?” She looked into my eyes and rested her manicured hand lightly on my knee.

“Mmph,” I said.

“And for you, sir?”

“Right. Yes. Sorry. I’ll have a…” With my glasses hidden at the bottom of my man-bag (which was, in turn, hidden in the furthest recesses of China Tang’s cloakroom), I thumbed blindly through the menu, desperately looking for something macho-sounding. “A Bullshot. Great, Thanks.”

Ludicrously Hot Date wrinkled her nose.

“Seriously?”

“Oh yes!” I squeaked. “Nothing like a nice Bullshot to start the evening.”

“It’s just that it’s got beef consommé in it. And that comes from cows.” She frowned. “Doesn’t it?”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said, very slowly. “It does. Yes.”

“But I thought your profile said you were a vegetarian?”

Since eating an ill-advised box of Chicken McNuggets outside the Bolton branch of McDonald’s on New Year’s Eve 2002, I haven’t touched meat or fish of any kind. I gulped. Behind me, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ was drifting out of the speakers.

I’d sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you near…

“Non-practicing,” I said.

***

“Oh, this is divine,” Ludicrously Hot Date sighed, setting her glass down on the table. “Aren’t you going to try yours, Glenn?”

I stared enviously at her bespoke Christmas Star cocktail – Ketel One vodka and something creamy with a dusting of nutmeg and a star anise on top. In front of me, in an enormous highball glass, was the Bullshot – all 350 menacing millilitres of it. It looked like Scotch broth, but without the carrots. Trying not to pull my coffee-face, I took the wariest sip since Rasputin sat down for dinner with Felix Yusupov and six of his closest friends.

“What do you think?”

I waited to pass out, or for my throat to close up. But actually, the Bullshot was just like a grown-up Bloody Mary – spicy, peppery and masses of depth. Not bad. Not bad at all.

“Delicious!” I said, grinning manically. “You know, I could drink these all night, I really could.”

“Well, I don’t know about that…” Ludicrously Hot Date moved a little closer to me on the plush banquette. “But how about we share some dim sum? I’m crazy about those cute little pork buns.”

I pictured battery chickens, and McDonald’s kitchens, and that horrible squeaking sound that Chicken McNuggets make when you bite into them. Then I pictured Ludicrously Hot Date licking barbeque sauce off her fingers.

“Count me in,” I said.

Experimental Cocktail Club, Soho

Experimental Cocktail Club
13A Gerrard Street
London
W1D 5PS
www.experimentalcocktailclublondon.com

Lee Moncello

More Sherlock Holmes than Inspector Clouseau, we discover the Experimental Cocktail Club behind an unmarked door in Chinatown.

From the steamy windows of the street, the stairway to the bar could be a portal to Mayfair - only the silk wallpaper and glass-noodle lampshades nod to the world outside.

The waiter talks us through the menu; under his advice, I choose an Old Cuban - rum, champagne, ginger, lime and mint. My drinking companion, Keira Royale, orders an Experience No 2: gin, elderflower, lemon juice, basil and lemongrass.

When the drinks arrive, we're quietly awed by little herb gardens in our vintage coupe glasses. Ah, les Français! You've always been much better than us in the kitchen.

For the second round Keira opts for an Old Cuban while I order a Stone Raft and, sure, there are no complaints from my cocktail companion.

But my drink is pure dommage. The menu promised bird's eye chilli-infused tequila, sherry, mezcal, agave nectar & celery bitters. I feel not the slightest tingle from the chillies - let alone the gentle poke of a celery stick - and sip away with intense chagrin until my £10 tumbler of sherry is empty

Experimental perfection? It might as well have been a beef and onion trifle for all I enjoyed it.

The one sweet upshot of the night was the realisation that London might be the world capital for cocktails. Sure, us Brits can barely cook worth a damn, but with Milk and Honey and the American Bar just five minutes' walk away from this venue, I hope for the ECC's sake that no-one else has to drink through the Stone Raft I had.

But, given the reputation of their Parisian outpost, even in the worst case scenario I have no doubt that they'll earn back their train fares.

The Nightjar, Shoreditch

The Nightjar

129 City Road

London

EC1V 1JB

www.barnightjar.com

Opal Nera

I duck out of the rain and into an unmarked door on City Road. I’d received a phone call earlier that day requesting my services to help track down a wayward husband. Typically, I don’t get involved in such second rate shenanigans, but I need new business cards and times are tough.

Still a little sore from last night’s bust up with a rather eager Rottweiler, I gingerly make my way down dimly-lit stairs into a San Franciscan-styled speakeasy. It’s a classy joint. I’m not surprised. On the phone, she sounded classy too. I reckon I’m looking for a breathy blond with a face like a worried puppy. I start to wonder whether I oughtn’t to have worn a red carnation for identification when I realise that the place is empty, apart from a long-legged blonde sitting alone at a table in the corner, and a sultry redhead singing a melancholic tune on stage.

I walk over to the blonde. Her hair swished down a little like what Frank Lloyd Wright must have had in mind when he designed Fallingwater. She wore a red dress so tight it looked Weisswurst wrapped in bacon. Boy, did she take a man’s mind off the recession.

The blonde looked up at me. “Mr. Nera”, she drawled.

“Drinks first,” I replied by way of introduction, “formalities second. What can I get you?”

“I’ll have a Fog Cutter. Rum always makes me feel better.”

I return with the drinks and sit opposite the blonde. I set the tall glass down in front of her and take a sip of my Ladybird before asking after her drink.

“Do you always take so long to get to the point, Mr Nera? I asked you here for a reason.”

I cock my left eyebrow by way of response.

“If you must know,” she purred, “it’s absolutely delicious. Tastes like my last Californian holiday – all rum and almond. Do you mind very much, Mr. Nera,” she said reaching across to brush my hand, “if I have a taste of your…”

“Of course,” I finished, sliding my drink across the table.

“Delicious,” she said. A little smile flicked across her lips as she licked a swish of chocolate off the glass. “What is it? Spiced rum and perhaps a dash of plum liquor?”

“It’s a Ladybird. You’re right about the spiced rum, but it’s prune and truffle liqueur, not plum. An excellent palate,” I smiled at her. “Now, tell me, Miss…”

She studied me over her Fog Cutter and remained silent.

“Miss…,” I faltered, “how can I be of assistance?”

“Well, Mr. Nera, you see I haven’t actually got a husband. At least not yet. But I hope to have one soon. Perhaps after a few more of these Fog Cutters…”

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.

Skylon, South Bank

Skylon
Royal Festival Hall
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX

Glenn Fiddich

Just after we arrived at Skylon, Fiddich Senior and I were presented with two complimentary glasses of iced water and a tiny porcelain bowl of rice crackers.

"Oh, I'm not sure we want any of these," said Fiddich Senior to our waitress, who looked like an extra from the first series of Star Trek. "Whatever they are."

"They're Japanese," she said, with the tiniest of sighs. "To go with your drinks."

Fiddich Senior, whose admiration for Vesta beef curries has remained undimmed by the passing of the years, looked pained.

"Yes, I think we'll give them a miss," he said. On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, my father was about to try his first cocktail, and he was determined not to enjoy it.

You see, Fiddich Senior comes from a little village in Cumbria - let's call it Ramsbottom. All the ales in his local boozer have names like Badger's Arse and Get Your Tits Out. In Ramsbottom, any man ordering a drink in a long-stemmed glass is regarded with the very deepest suspicion. But my tales of Skylon, with its grand river views and gourmet bar snacks, had intrigued him. We've always had a rather competitive father-son relationship (every Sports Day, he used to abandon me in the Parents' Race and team up with a thinner, faster child), and he likes to prove me wrong. So he booked a return ticket to Euston and prepared himself to be disappointed. He was, he told me firmly, really only coming down to London to visit the Imperial War Museum. 

With the crackers gone, Fiddich Senior turned his attention to the Skylon cocktail menu, which is divided into classics (Martini, Margarita and several others beginning with M), seasonal specials, Bellinis and desert cocktails. As I talked him through the various options, he looked longingly at the whiskys.

I decided to go for my usual, the Skylon Spritzer (Apperol and rhubarb with a lemon and grapefruit twist, topped up with sparkling wine), while Fiddich Senior, after much hmming and tutting, chose the Prunelle (fresh plums muddled shaken with Prunelle plum liqueur, Krupnik honey vodka, lemon and apple juice).

"Very good for the digestion, plums," he told our waitress when she brought the drinks over. "Well, here goes." Then he took a deep breath, lifted his glass (a Martini glass, never to be mentioned in Ramsbottom) and took a cautious sip through pursed lips.

"Well?" I asked. Fiddich Senior swilled the contents of his mouth around, looking thoughtful. 

"Room spray," he said eventually. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "But nice room spray." He took another sip, a bigger one this time, and smiled. "You know, I might have another one of these. And some of those Japanese things, too."