Penny Blood's Black Book - My Independent Guide to London » Bars

Tooting Tram and Social

Penny Blood — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:49:35 +0000

The Tooting Social Club gets full marks for decoration I can tell you that. The location is another story though. On the one hand it’s in such a far-flung and how do I say diplomatically, ‘vibrant’ area (translation hellhole) that it can’t help but have a “we’re not joining the Shoreditch bandwagon” vibe about it, which I have to say I wholly approve of. On the other hand it’s in a far-flung hellhole. Tooting has dedicated it’s presence to fried chicken shops, pound shops and betting shops but fortunately The Tooting Social Club is tucked away up an alley so for a moment you can forget all that. I’m counting it in my top ten though because it just looks so great, you just can’t put into words how stunning it is. As a former Tram Shed it has 75ft ceilings which invoke the impression of a vastly eccentric ballroom with epic chandeliers and sixties lamps. The multitude of worn and comfortable leather couches, odd pictures (I spot a Tretchikoff –yes!) and ornaments give this bar wonderful charisma.

www.antic-ltd.com/tooting

Tooting Tram and Social, 46-48 Mitcham Road, London, SW17 9NA
0208 767 0278
Tuesday – Thursday 5.00pm – 12.00am Friday 4.00pm – 2.00am Saturday 1.00pm – 2.00pm Sunday 1.00pm – 12.00am

Nightjar

Penny Blood — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:30:24 +0000

Nightjar is the kind of subterranean speakeasy people love to tell their friends about, probably (unfortunately) because places like this are few and far between. Sandwiched between two awful sandwich shops next to Old Street Roundabout, the entrance to Nightjar is little more than a heavy wooden door with a small gold plate with an engraving of a gold Nightjar, a bird known for only venturing out undercover of dusk and in the early hours of the morning. In other words someone would have had to tell you about Nightjar because it’s unlikely you would ever discover it otherwise. After you descend down the corridor and polished dark wooden stairs you will find yourself in a romantically lit bar not out of place in either the TV shows Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire. I’m promptly shown to a table, (although it’s laid back they still like to do things properly) and presented with a menu of exquisite (although I’m afraid, expensive cocktails) and a jar of popcorn to stack on, I’m starving so I eat the lot before the waitress even takes my order, (fortunately she just brings me more). Cocktails are their speciality and they have a very original selection, as much as I love cocktails they are not something I can indulge in much these days so I have to make do with watching the expert staff do their thing. They serve a few small bites complete with a little trolley where a chef will whip up a something like crepes Suzette at your table all to the backdrop of live jazz, cabaret, and swing music, drinking doesn’t get more debonair than that.

http://barnightjar.com/

Nightjar, 129 City Road, London EC1V 1JB
020 7253 4101
Tuesday – Wednesday, Sunday 5pm-1:30am; Thursday – Saturday 5pm-3:30am

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Dalson Superstore

Penny Blood — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:40:11 +0000

There is one thing that London seriously seems to lack and that’s dive bars. New York has countless dive bars, that’s the only thing I would say New York had over London, dive bars. We have plenty of nice pubs just not enough dive bars. Dalston Superstore is not a dive bar as such but it is a New York style bar in many ways, clad in cement and steel it’s definitely laid back with graffiti on the walls and random stuff hanging above the bar. Hipster to a fault it’s a name often dropped, “what are you up to tonight? My friend is DJing at Dalston Superstore” (you study computer science at UCL but your girlfriend studies fine art at Central Saint Martins, am I right? You’re the person thay made that ‘Being a Dickhead’s cool’ video about.) You can order a good cocktail and expect to find hearty hamburgers, sandwichs and delicious cakes on the menu too.

http://www.facebook.com/dalstonsuperstore

Dalston Superstore, 117 Kingsland High Street, London, E8 2PB
Monday – Friday 12.00pm – 2.00am
Saturday – Sunday 11.00am – 2.00am
Food served 12.00pm – 4.30pm, 6.oopm – 9.30pm daily

Casita

Penny Blood — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:12:37 +0000

Casita is a (I want to say Mexican themed) tiny little bar where they serve delicious (if somewhat pricey) cocktails but it’s the tequila shot I would recommend. It’s made from a special brand of Tequila, mint and lime I think but it’s thick and just a little bit sweet, I can’t remember what it’s called but I’m sure they’d know what you’re talking about. I recommended Casita to a friend who went with a few people who she tells me got very drunk and gave the bartender a hard time. She felt obliged to compensate him for his patience with a large tip. For some reason I felt the need to point out that he was a high ranking British Aristocrat and that he certainly didn’t work behind the bar because he had too, this is reflected in the service which is warm and friendly making everyone feel like a regular. My friend wished I hadn’t told her that though.

Casita, 5a Ravey Street, London, EC2A 4QW
02077297230
Monday – Sunday 5pm-11pm

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Favela Chic

Penny Blood — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:44:19 +0000

There is nothing I love more than taking a Third World theme and throwing a shit load of money at it thereby creating the ideal place for posh kids to hold their birthday parties all the while discussing their current holier-than-thou missions with the red cross, UN or whatever. The theme is in the title and I can surely say it summarises the place entirely apart from the fact that it is absolutely nothing like a favela or anywhere else in Brazil for that matter. However salsa music, disco balls, furniture that looks like it was washed up on a beach, flea market lamps, kitsch paintings and wallpaper, graffitied bathrooms, staff dressed head to toe in American apparel and imported Japanese trainers, cocktails and delicious Brazilian inspired food with exterior walls covered in carpet is good enough for me. I love Favela Chic.

http://www.favelachic.com/london/

Favela Chic, 91-93 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3HZ
020 7613 4228
Tuesday – Thursday 6pm-10pm Friday – Saturday 6pm-11.30pm

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Balham Bowling Club

Penny Blood — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:00:19 +0000

It may be way down south, miles from anywhere but the Balham Bowling Club is a great pub. It’s pouring with rain and I had to cut an epic breakfast at Little Georgia on Broadway Market with N.I.C.N.M* short as the night before I had the stupid idea that Sunday lunch at the B.B.C was a good idea even though it meant trekking down from Bethnal Green in monumentally shit weather. And just as I get there I get a call saying that my friends are all still at home eating gluten free pancakes, that’s bloody great. So out of 8 people I’m the only one here, what a loser! Not to worry though this place is just great, there’s nowhere quite like it. It’s decorated in a theme somewhere between an old school and a sports club, like a set from the History Boys with gaudy furniture and tapestries, basically one giant junk shop neatly arranged. There are billiard tables and Chesterfield couches and big rooms with lots of nooks and crannies to sit in. Only thing is it’s not very cosy but at least it’s not crowded.

*N.I.C.N.M (Name I Can Not Mention) was like my best friend for about 6 months. After knowing him for 2 months I moved into a spare room in his house, this turned out to be a mistake. It came to light that N.I.C.N.M is a hybrid between the character in American Psycho and Julia Roberts’ husband in Sleeping with the Enemy. You get the idea. Freakishly anal he would label all the shelves in the kitchen with a dynamo, things like “small cups” plates and bowls” cereal bowls”, large plates” I always thought at the very least plates and large plates and bowls and cereal bowls should be in the same cupboards, anyway N.I.C.N.M thought otherwise. There was one shelf marked “glasses” which was always empty so I put mugs in there as there wasn’t enough room in the “mugs” shelf. He came up to me one day saying that ‘Adam (our other housemate) was fucking with his head putting things in the wrong places’, when I confessed it was me he (in all seriousness) told me how disappointed he was in me so I pointed out we didn’t own any glasses. The next day he bought one single glass and put it on the shelf. He had turned the garage into his personal gym decorated with pictures of Cindy Crawford in a bathing suit in the early 90′s and listened to Mariah Carey really loud whilst lifting weights and then obsessively recorded his reps on a board on the wall. He had bizarrely neat hand writing. He also used to collect anything with a rainbow pattern this included spending £7 on a rainbow shaped eraser he bought of ebay. He would keep all his shirts in the order of the rainbow on coathangers in various shades, again following the colours of the rainbow. Nothing got N.I.C.N.M more excited than a new shade to add to his collection. He also loved Usher and had a gay pet parrot (which like N.I.C.N.M hated girls) which was the most pointless pet in the world as all it did was shreak and shit everywhere.

Balham Bowling Club, 7 Ramsden Road London, SW12 8QX
020 86734700
Monday – Saturday 9am-6pm

Caffe-in

Trailer Happiness

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:14:59 +0000

I don’t go out to bars all that much, I usually only get as far as dinner then decide I’m done socialising and head home. Trailer Happiness isn’t somewhere I come often but if I was to recommend a good bar (which I am) then this would be it. Think South Pacific tiki hut mixed with 70’s kitsch. The palm tree and sunset décor are bright and colourful against dark walls and the odd Tretchikoff (Russian master of the kitsch genre) painting on the wall. They serve great cocktails and cater to the Notting Hill media crowd with the odd boho celebrity thrown in. The music is usually cool 70’s R’n'B and hip hop not anything like the usual cheesy crap associated with the 70′s music scene. I’d read that it’s a really friendly place where everyone talks to everyone. Fortunately I didn’t find this to be so, as usually the people who say these things are the people doing all the talking and the people I try to avoid.

http://www.trailerhappiness.com/about/

177 Portobello Road, London W11 2DY
020 7727 2700
Tuesday – Friday 5pm-late Saturday 7pm-late Sunday 6pm-10.30pm

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Shoreditch Electricity Rooms

Penny Blood — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:05:24 +0000

The way things are going these days, no trendy bar or café will be complete without the odd piece of taxidermy it seems. The venue is large and quite pretentious which attracts Shoreditch locals*. A bit like an old fashioned English pub but with 70′s-style hippie-chic wallpaper. “ ….it’s popular with an uber trendy twenty to thirty something crowd who come in their hoards to drink, schmooze and stand around looking like they’ve just stepped out of an indie-styled video.” I stole that from someone else but it was too righteous a description to bother re-phrasing as my own and anyway originality is nothing without judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed from one another. Voltaire said that. Oh and Polly Morgan used to be the manager here.

*At time of writing this was true, however now it’s cool to go to uncool places leaving the formally cool places to the uncool people.

Shoreditch Electricity Rooms, 39a Hoxton Square, Shoreditch, N1 6NN
020 7739 3939
Monday – Friday 12pm-12am Saturday – Sunday 12pm-1am

Commercial Tavern

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:43:37 +0000

The Commercial Tavern is kitsch kitsch kitsch but works all the same as they’ve gone all the way with it, there is nothing parsimonious about the theme here and there is no shortage of chandeliers, flocked wallpaper or faux antique furniture painted gold either. It’s a cross between a pub and a bar or rather they have turned a pub into a bar by covering the walls with kaleidoscopic prints so they can charge more for a drink. I’m on a dreadful date where I keep having to buy my own drinks and the guy keeps talking about his ex-girlfriend who is a model apparently, always good to hear, what a moron.

Commercial Tavern, 142 Commercial Street, Shoreditch, London, E1 6NU
020 7247 1888
Monday – Friday 5pm-11pm Saturday – Sunday 12pm-11pm
Food served Monday – Friday 12pm-9.30pm Saturday 12pm-8.30pm Sunday 12pm-5pm

Bistrotheque

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:38:27 +0000

The first time I came here was to see ‘tranny lip-synching’. The MC was this tall lanky transvestite wearing nothing but a black spandex catsuit and an epic silver Helmut Lang belt. It had a profound effect on me. Bistrotheque is a bar, a club and a restaurant with a very Paris-meets-Shoreditch style. It’s up an industrial-looking side street and you would never know it was there unless you knew it was there. They have done a beautiful job with not much to start with, creating a half antique-looking half ultra-chic east London hang out and the bathrooms are illustrated by Will Broome (the guy who does the drawings for Marc by Marc Jacobs) Not only a bar, they have a great restaurant which gets booked out night after night.

http://www.bistrotheque.com

Bistroteque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR
020 8983 7900
(Brunch) Saturday – Sunday 11am-4pm
(Dinner) Sunday – Thursday 6.30pm – 10.30pm Friday – Saturday 6.30 – 11.00pm

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