Great Beyond Review: 4.8, and They Brew It Behind You
Great Beyond Review: 4.8, and They Brew It Behind You | The taproom is the correct way to drink beer and the reason is entirely physical
Tag: bar review
Symposium Review: It Means a Drinking Party
Symposium Review: It Means a Drinking Party | Plato’s most famous dialogue is set at one, everybody is hungover, and the word now means an academic conference
Equus Review: Thirteen Reviews and a Very Loaded Name
Equus Review: Thirteen Reviews and a Very Loaded Name | Equus is Latin for horse. It is also a famous play about a boy who blinds six of them. The bar has not clarified.
Seed Library Review: A Seed Library Is a Real Thing
Seed Library Review: A Seed Library Is a Real Thing | They lend you seeds, you grow them, and you return the seeds of what you grew – and the whole point is genetic diversity
Mr Fogg’s Gin Parlour Review: The Third One
Mr Fogg’s Gin Parlour Review: The Third One | Tavern, Society of Exploration, Gin Parlour. One fictional Victorian, three price points, and a chain that has understood the British perfectly.
Permission Lounge Review: A Five-Star Rating That Actually Counts
Permission Lounge Review: A Five-Star Rating That Actually Counts | Ninety-four people. Five point zero. After eighty articles of complaining about sample sizes, we have to eat this one.
Pelt Trader Review: The Skinners and the Merchant Taylors Went to War
Pelt Trader Review: The Skinners and the Merchant Taylors Went to War | Two livery companies fought over precedence so violently that the Lord Mayor made them swap places every year. It is where at sixes and sevens comes from.
Koha Review: A Word for a Gift With No Price
Koha Review: A Word for a Gift With No Price | In Maori, koha is a gift given without obligation – and the concept has no clean English equivalent, which tells you something
Signature Brew Review: A Brewery That Tours With Bands
Signature Brew Review: A Brewery That Tours With Bands | They brew beer with musicians, they put a venue in the brewery, and it is one of the few places in London still doing both
All Bar One Review: 5,227 People and Nothing to Say
All Bar One Review: 5,227 People and Nothing to Say | A chain bar with more reviews than the Lamb and Flag, and a rating higher than the Salisbury, and no story at all
Montys Review: Montgomery Slept Twelve Hours a Night
Montys Review: Montgomery Slept Twelve Hours a Night | He banned smoking, he did not drink, he went to bed at half past nine, and he beat Rommel
Cocktail Club Shoreditch Review: The Fifth, and the Lowest
Cocktail Club Shoreditch Review: The Fifth, and the Lowest | Two branches in one district, four-tenths of a star apart, and the difference is which street they are on
Moto Sake Bar Review: Britain Is Wrong About Sake
Moto Sake Bar Review: Britain Is Wrong About Sake | A Covent Garden sake bar quietly correcting a national misunderstanding, one warm-sake refusenik at a time
135 Review: The Fourth Numbered Bar, and Still No Explanation
135 Review: The Fourth Numbered Bar, and Still No Explanation | A number on a door tells you nothing, cannot be checked, and cannot be wrong, and that is precisely the appeal
Mikkeller Review: The Brewery Does Not Own a Brewery
Mikkeller Review: The Brewery Does Not Own a Brewery | A Danish maths teacher started brewing in a kitchen, refused to buy a plant, and built one of the most influential beer companies in the world
St George Review: Coffee and Wine, Which Should Not Work
St George Review: Coffee and Wine, Which Should Not Work | One to ten pounds, a 4.7 from three hundred people, and a business model that solves the hardest problem in hospitality
Cocktail Club Old Street Review: The Fourth One, and the Rule Holds
Cocktail Club Old Street Review: The Fourth One, and the Rule Holds | 4.7, 4.6, 4.5, 4.4 – and the branch with the fewest reviews wins, every single time, in every chain, in every district
Cornershop Review: A 3.7, and It Is Not the Bar’s Fault
Cornershop Review: A 3.7, and It Is Not the Bar’s Fault | A cheap late-opening sports bar in the busiest drinking street in east London is being punished for every single thing it does right
All Bar One Villiers Street Review: The Same Bar, 0.1 Better
All Bar One Villiers Street Review: The Same Bar, 0.1 Better | Two branches of the same chain, in the same district, with the same menu. They are not rated the same. Here is why.
Voila Review: It Means See There, and It Is an Instruction
Voila Review: It Means See There, and It Is an Instruction | Not there it is. See there. It is a verb, and it is pointing at something, and the exclamation mark is doing real work
Bar Arriba Review: The Toast Is a Set of Instructions
Bar Arriba Review: The Toast Is a Set of Instructions | Arriba, abajo, al centro, adentro. Up, down, to the centre, and in. It is the most efficient toast in any language.
Be At One Review: Two Branches, and This Time They Match
Be At One Review: Two Branches, and This Time They Match | Six matched pairs in this survey and every one of them differed. Here are two that do not, and it complicates everything.
Mulwray Review: Forget It, Jake
Mulwray Review: Forget It, Jake | Named for a character in the bleakest ending in American cinema, and the last line is one of the most quoted in the language
Otherist Review: Othering Is a Real Term and This Is Not It
Otherist Review: Othering Is a Real Term and This Is Not It | The name gestures at a serious idea, almost certainly by accident, and we are going to take it seriously anyway
Cahoots Review: A Fake Tube Station, and the Real Ones Were Worse
Cahoots Review: A Fake Tube Station, and the Real Ones Were Worse | It is themed as a wartime Underground station. Around a hundred and fifty thousand people slept in the real ones.
Be At One Piccadilly Review: The Fifth One, and the Case Is Closed
Be At One Piccadilly Review: The Fifth One, and the Case Is Closed | 4.6, 4.6, 4.3, 4.5 and 4.6 – and every one of those numbers is explained by the street outside
SOMA Review: Nobody Knows What the Plant Was
SOMA Review: Nobody Knows What the Plant Was | Soma is a real ritual drink, described in enormous detail in the Rigveda, and the plant it was made from has never been identified
Comptons Review: The Pub Is Older Than the Right to Be in It
Comptons Review: The Pub Is Older Than the Right to Be in It | Homosexuality was a criminal offence in England until 1967, and the equal age of consent did not arrive until 2001
Vermouth Bar Review: Apples and Pears Is Rhyming Slang for Stairs
Vermouth Bar Review: Apples and Pears Is Rhyming Slang for Stairs | The restaurant is called Mele e Pere and the bar is downstairs, and it is the best bilingual joke in five postcodes
Box Review: The Sports Bar Is the Last Communal Television
Box Review: The Sports Bar Is the Last Communal Television | Almost nobody watches anything together any more, and the sports bar is the only room left where a hundred people react at once