Class - August 2003

Sister-venture to the massively popular Willesden local, this restaurant and bar offers supremely good quality and reasonably priced food – plus pretty good cocktails. The move from Willesden to Old Street, Shoreditch is a bold leap, geographically, economically and in competition terms, but within just over two months of opening, the restaurant is buzzing and busy.

Visually, the bar and restaurant are utterly, utterly distinct. On approach, a wide glass frontage gives onto a standard-issue minimalist, light wood fusion restaurant – it is only on entering that one realises there are stairs leading down to the bar. This is a real shame, since the lounge bar is beautifully designed, serves genuinely good cocktails, offers table service and is, quite frankly, one of the classiest venues in this ever-expanding bar zone.

Designed by Stiff + Trevillion with input from Delphine Chevalier and Bruce Towler, who consulted on the Buddha Bar, Paris, the lounge bar is a gorgeous, orientally-themed cocoon. Candles nestle in blocky alcoves within ruby walls; gobo lighting casts delicate abstract patterns over painted plaster walls in shades of red and blue. Low banquette seating in oriental patterns line the room, subdivided by armrests into booths, while low lacquer tables reflect the eastern theme. Cute, steel dangling lamps around the island bar and exposed ducting on the ceiling pay subtle homage to the Shoreditch industrial vein.

The drinks offering is extraordinarily good by the area’s standards. A Hoxton Mule – fresh ginger with vodka, lime juice, sugar and soda – was a very nice take on the classic Moscow Mule and in this reviewer’s opinion better than most versions of the original. A Markee and Old Fashioned worked well, although it was odd that nobody knew how to make a B-52 (which was not, in fairness, on the menu). Service, while rather slow, was very, very good. A pregnant companion’s request for ‘something long and fruity without alcohol’ was met to her total satisfaction without any fuss or further questioning.

Bar snacks were very pleasant. A Rib-Eye Shish came as two skewers of rare marinated beef with fresh veg and a great home-made dipping sauce, which was really rather moreish. Duck & Vegetable Rice Paper Rolls were a little bland, although the black bean sauce they came with pepped them up somewhat.

Chilled music, combined with the delicate low lighting, created a happy and settled vibe, appreciated by the very much new Shoreditch clientele: post-workers, relatively moneyed locals and dressed-down 30-somethings, with not a Hoxton fin or fashion student in sight. For a date, a meeting, a chat or a post-work drink, this is a very, very workable lounge bar. Let’s just hope that people can find it.