A Chelsea legend since 1985, home of a cocktail set on fire and drunk through a straw – and of a genuine 1990s City scandal
Nam Long Le Shaker on Old Brompton Road holds two hundred and ninety reviews and a 4.2 – a solid score on a good sample – but the numbers tell you nothing about what this place actually is: a genuine Chelsea legend, open since 1985, home of one of the most notorious cocktails ever created, and the birthplace of a real 1990s City of London scandal.
The Flaming Ferrari
Nam Long is world-famous for one thing above all: the Flaming Ferrari, a cocktail of near-mythical status. It is a potent mixture – green Chartreuse, Grand Marnier, dark rum, and a shot of blue curacao – which is then set on fire and drunk quickly through a straw while the flames still burn, as the bartenders pound the table with their fists and imitate the roaring, revving sound of a Ferrari engine.
It is theatre, spectacle, and considerable danger, all in one glass. The drink is enormously strong, the ritual is loud and dramatic, and the whole experience is designed as a “party starter” – an eye-catching, table-thumping, flame-slurping phenomenon that people make a genuine pilgrimage to South Kensington to experience. It has spawned countless imitations around the world, but the original burns here, at Nam Long, where it has been on the menu for decades.
The Flaming Ferrari Boys
The cocktail gave its name to one of the emblematic scandals of the 1990s City of London. A group of five young share traders at the bank Credit Suisse – including the son of the disgraced-politician-turned-novelist Jeffrey Archer – became notorious regulars at Nam Long, fuelling their Friday nights with Flaming Ferraris. They named themselves, after their favourite drink, the “Flaming Ferrari Boys.”
Their hedonism was not confined to the bar. The Flaming Ferrari Boys ran up around a million pounds’ worth of unauthorised trading deals, and were eventually suspended by the bank in a scandal that made headlines and came to symbolise the reckless, excessive, testosterone-fuelled culture of 1990s City trading. The cocktail, the bar, and the boys became a single legend – a story of money, fire, excess and comeuppance, with Nam Long at its centre. Fittingly, a group named after a drink that is set on fire saw their careers end in flames.
The fearsome door
Nam Long’s founder, Thai Dang, was a genuinely folkloric character – flamboyant, sharp-tongued, and famous for his ferocious and eccentric control of the door. His door policy was legendary for its unpredictability: he reportedly denied entry to Prince William, and turned away Mick Jagger. To be refused admission by Thai Dang was almost a badge of honour; to be admitted was to enter one of the great hedonistic haunts of Chelsea, a place, as one regular put it, that most remembered arriving at but few remembered leaving.
Dang has since passed away, and his daughter now runs the place, softening the famously fierce door and introducing lighter cocktails alongside the ever-present Ferrari. But the legend endures – the Vietnamese restaurant with the unassuming frontage that became, for decades, a magnet for aristocrats, pop stars, City traders and anyone in search of a genuinely wild night.
The bar
A solid, well-regarded Chelsea institution doing a fair 4.2 across a good sample, but famous far beyond its numbers as the home of the Flaming Ferrari, the birthplace of a City scandal, and one of the great hedonistic legends of Chelsea nightlife.
Verdict
Solid by the numbers, legendary by reputation – home of the flame-slurped Flaming Ferrari, the Flaming Ferrari Boys, and a famously fearsome door that turned away princes.
Order a Flaming Ferrari if you dare – set alight, drunk through a straw to a roaring engine soundtrack – and enjoy one of the last genuinely wild legends of old Chelsea. Just do not book a breakfast meeting for the morning after.
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]
Good satire makes you laugh uncomfortable then laugh at your discomfort.