Pubs and Bars / cocktail bar
Bar of the Week: London Cocktail Club
The first London Cocktail Club, set up in Covent Garden in 2008 was an “Unashamedly Awesome” [sic] bar opened by one JJ Goodman and his BFF James ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, with a loan from JJ’s mum. So goes the spiel in the back of the tall black menu, found on top of the bar inside what is now London Cocktail Club’s tenth bar and their first outside the confines of the M25.
Step through the red front door and the inside of this three-storey grown-up funhouse is full of exciting prospects of tangles with interesting people in the shadows. Clumps of purple wisteria hang from the ceiling over the seats in the window, while zany framed photos of ice cream float on a background of flamingo wallpaper and feather-covered lampshades.
Curtains featuring more flamingos screen off the back section of the ground floor, decorated with red lights and flock wallpaper, and behind the bar is a malfunctioning neon sign slightly misquoting JM Barrie’s Peter Pan, around which the bar is loosely themed: “To live would be an awfully big adventure.”
is needed now More than ever
Flamingos feature heavily in the “twisted Neverland” theme of the bar
Dressing to impress is nothing less than an imperative, with the bar staff in brighter than bright clashing shirts, including founder JJ in a full flamingo-print suit for the occasion, and even a garden gnome daubed in kitsch leopard print nestling beside the long rows of glowing spirits on the backlit wall .
Each time a staff member passes one of the pendant lamps above the bar they swing it wildly with a reckless abandon that seems stilted to begin with but more genuine as the night wears on. A girl at the bar in heels that push her to six feet almost gets clobbered as she doesn’t see the metal casing coming at her in the almost totally dark interior, but everyone just laughs it away.
The bass shakes the bar and the staff dance and sing to the student house party pop blaring out. Katy Perry took too many shots last Friday night, Taylor Swift shakes it off, and the hot young things of Bristol play at being deeply uncool for an Instagram story while their cool friends laugh uproariously at the very idea.
A Baked Alaska, made with Bristol Dry Gin and finished with a torched marshmallow
Unlike the ilk of the recently-reopened Kinkajou (previously Hausbar) on Whiteladies Road, or Red Light on College Green, with methodical menus reflecting their subtle prohibition themes and bar staff who know their stuff inside out, London Cocktail Club is sweet and slapdash.
Cocktails made with Nutella and finished with marshmallows cater to young palates; Darth Jägers and Porn Star Martinis are made to make 18-year-olds giggle; chilli margaritas, Nuclear Daiquiris and a fruity number named Brixton Riot push the boundaries of all sorts of taste.
Located in a prime student spot on the triangle next door to Mgargo, London Cocktail Club’s Bristol venture is putting a lot of faith in millennials to spend their hard-earned cash on £10 drinks, though the clockwork crocodile, secret wardrobes and nights that promise to go straight on ’til morning ought to do the trick. There’s a new kid in town and it refuses to grow up.
London Cocktail Club
37 Triangle West, Bristol, BS8 1ER
www.londoncocktailclub.co.uk/bristol
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