Holiday posting: Raoul's, Oxford

Raoul’s

32 Walton Street
Oxford OX2 6AA

www.raoulsbar.co.uk

Jerry Boam

Naturally, or otherwise, Merton College, Oxford is the Boam alma mater. For more generations than the archives recall, sundry Boams have been drawn here; here, to Merton’s singular cobbled charms, its delightfully tended gardens, and its strange, shrugging air of having just missed out on something rather important.

It’s been a mixed history. Viscount Balthazar Boam was here of course, until he was sent down for something to do with the Dean, the Warden’s sixteen year-old daughter and a half-crate of vintage port. The exact tale has never fully emerged. Great Uncle Boozy Boam was here, submerged in claret and the classics. And, more recently, half-Uncle Hogg-Boam scraped in somehow and terrorised the young servant girls long into Oxford’s winter nights.

It is with such thoughts of lineage and destiny and the aged musk of Gevrey-Chambertin that I return now to Oxford’s ponderous streets. We stroll along the Broad, past Ducker’s on Turl, down the cobbles of Magpie Lane, and oh, to Merton’s pale and happy stones. Three years of memories rush back: Sundays, lazy smoking upon my first-year window seat; hazy summer lawns, tasseled loafers, lightly crumpled linen; my first pair of co-respondent brogues; my half-blue for Rugby Fives; my thirst for the coruscating scrape of neat gin upon a half-starved stomach. And Raoul’s.

Raoul’s. Here we supped on cocktails – rich and fruity – deep into summer nights, to totter home full of sugary verve and love. Thick mango purees, spiced pears redolent of some mystical Orient, dribbles of sticky caramel, fresh limes, apricots, the buttery whiff of vanilla. And the booze! Rums and brandies, whiskies, vodkas, liqueurs in every flavour, tequila from old Mexico, bourbon from New York…

Unsurprisingly, the aura of such dreams has faded. The clientèle wear jeans now. The décor – always bad – seems to have taken rather a tumble. And of course these days I must brave the pavement to partake of a Sobranie. But the drinks! Oh the drinks! One diving slurp into a tumbler of peachy Calvados-laced wonder, and it all comes flooding back – the excitement, the joy, the adventure. The booze! For as long as there are Boams at Merton, there shall be Boams at Raoul's. 

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.

Vıajante, Bethnal Green

Vıajante

Patriot Square
Bethnal Green
London E2 9NF

http://www.viajante.co.uk

Monty Pulciano

I once tried on an off the peg suit at Spencer Hart on Savile Row. The jacket had magical flattering properties. It grabbed me around the shoulders, made me stand up straight and gave me an unfounded sense of my own importance. This is what a properly made Negroni should do. The gin makes you sit up straight, the medicinal taste of the campari feels like it is doing you good whilst the sweet vermouth and orange flatter you. The Negroni at Viajante failed to do one of these things and therefore failed utterly. There was not enough gin you see; I got the medicine and sweetness without the discipline imparted by strong alcohol. The twisted orange peel wasn’t up to much either.

Kina Lillet had asked me to do a review for this blog. I’d been putting it off for months pretending that I was writing a book when truth be told, I just don’t like cocktails that much. There’s so much to go wrong and even when the drink is made correctly, you have about 4 minutes to drink it before the ice melts, dilutes the drink and it is ruined. Red wine or whisky get better the longer you leave them and I like to linger. Cocktails are all hurry. They are essentially drinks for children.

The cocktail bar in Viajante is, however, a lovely room, the almonds are excellent and the staff sweetly camp so it would have been silly not to have another drink.  I ordered a Bermuda Porter. This consists of rum mixed with lemon juice and sugar and then topped with the foam from a porter beer and grated nutmeg and served in a half-pint dimple glass. Now this is a clever drink. One drinks the tart but sweetened rum through the malty foam. The first sip is wonderful. Sadly the foam quickly collapses, the ice melts and you are left with an unsightly scum. Before long it looks like one of those drinks university rugby players down for a dare before being sick all over your shoes. 

My wife ordered better, a Buffalo Jam. This is bourbon, Borojoa jam, lemon and soda: delicious, and after five minutes still delicious. Dilution did not ruin the drink. Viajante claim that Borojoa jam has aphrodisiac properties. Perhaps it’s me, but the only things she felt like after we left were some lamb chops and a nice drop of claret.

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.

Callooh Callay, Shoreditch

Callooh Callay

65 Rivington Street

London

EC2A 3AY

http://www.calloohcallaybar.com

Simon Barraclough

Callooh Callay

Excuse me please, my ear is full of milk—Oliver Hardy (Going Bye-Bye, 1934)

Wine comes in at the mouth, and love at the eye,

but any fule kno that milk comes in at the ear.

I hear that cocktails pour their thoughts

through the candlestick ‘phone at Callooh Callay

where patrons, wise and elegant, drink not

themselves under the table but clear through

the looking glass where the Jabberwock waits

with impeccable, unimpeachschnappsable taste.

If its brrr outside then there’s Byrrh within

knocking boots with a splash of Amer Picon,

Cointreau, anise, and a sly soupçon

of inside-out chat about this and that.

Fraternise with a passing Fratterwacken,

or pick from a platter of snicker-snacks

to whet the old whistle and I’ll come to you lad,

keep coming back for the Jubjub Bird

in its fresh minty nest of green olive eggs,

spirited anchovies pecking their way

through shell and through mirror to the secret chamber

beyond.

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.