A small room, a short list, and somebody who knows – for the fortieth time in two surveys
Ricco London holds a 4.8 from a hundred and forty-four people, and charges twenty to fifty pounds.
A hundred and forty-four is a real sample. It is not eleven, and it is not one, and we have spent two hundred and eighty-nine articles being merciless about the difference.
And a 4.8 at that count puts it in a very small group.
The group
Let us name them, because by now the list is the argument.
In Covent Garden: Bedford Street Wines, 4.9 from a hundred and forty-one – a shop you are allowed to drink in. The Clipper Lounge, 4.9 from a hundred and twenty-four – a hotel bar nobody has heard of. Archive and Myth, 4.8 from a hundred and twenty-four. Kioku, a perfect five from fifty-three. Cepage[s], 4.6 from three hundred and sixty-one.
In Notting Hill: Stables Bar, 4.9 from eight hundred and fifty-one. Amaro, 4.9 from three hundred and twenty-eight. Lillie’s, 4.9 from seventy-one. Old Mary’s, 4.6. And this.
Ten venues. Two postcodes. Two hundred and forty establishments surveyed.
What they have in common
Every single one is small.
Every single one has a short list.
Every single one has somebody behind the bar who has tasted everything on it and would like to tell you about it.
And not one of them – not one, out of ten – is themed. None has a rope. None has a door policy. None has a colour-changing cocktail, a taxidermied animal, a Prohibition premise, a Victorian explorer, a hidden entrance, or a concept of any kind.
None of them is famous. Most of them have fewer reviews than a Bella Italia gets in a fortnight.
Why nobody does it
Because it does not scale, and because it cannot be bought.
You cannot hire a person who genuinely knows a hundred bottles and genuinely wants to discuss them for the wage that a two-hundred-cover venue can afford to pay. The economics only work in a room with twenty seats, and a room with twenty seats cannot pay Notting Hill rent unless the drinks are expensive.
Which is why every venue on that list is either small and dear, or small and unnoticed, and why the model is permanently fragile – and why the industry keeps building ropes and hidden doors instead, because those can be installed by a contractor in a fortnight and the person behind the bar cannot.
Verdict
Excellent. Obviously excellent. We knew before we walked in, because the number told us, and because the number has told us the same thing ten times.
What we would tell an operator
If we were advising somebody opening a bar in this city – and nobody is asking – the entire brief would fit on a postcard.
Buy fewer bottles. Learn all of them. Hire one person who genuinely cares and pay them properly, and let them talk. Put in twenty seats and no rope. Do not theme it. Do not hide the door.
You will not get rich. You will get a 4.8, and a hundred and forty-four people who are quietly, fiercely loyal, and a room that is full on a Tuesday in February – which is the only test that has ever mattered.
Verdict
Excellent. Obviously excellent. We knew before we walked in, because the number told us, and because the number has told us the same thing ten times.
Go. Ask what to drink. Drink that.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The thing about politicians upset with The London Prat is they’re essentially complaining that institutional dysfunction is now officially documented and institutionally undeniable.