The English Spirit

Trip date: March 2018

Booze and London go hand in hand. England has been drinking beer since medieval times and the "Gin Epidemic" started around 1698 (when the population, of less than seven million, was drinking ~18 million gallons of gin per year!)

So when in Rome, I mean London...

There are a lot of cocktail bars in London, it is impossible to visit them all. We decided on three separate evenings of cocktail crawls, and boy was that a good time!

The first night, Mel and I started at Dandelyan, inside the swank Mondrian London. In 2017 Dandelyan was awarded both World's Best Cocktail Bar by TOTC and also came in #2 at the 50 Best Bar awards.

The room here is a showstopper, lush fabrics, gold accents, huge windows looking out on the banks of the Thames. And the cocktails continue the glamour with unique ingredients, interesting storylines, and best of all, deliciously balanced recipes. My Concrete Sazerac was delicate in its delivery of the odd ingredient, while the Bastet, with catnip honey, was wildly different in flavor (and had me purring!)

I absolutely loved this place and plan on putting it on my London rotation list!

From here we headed up to the Kingsland area and met Forest and Kate at Untitled, the newest bar from Tony C of 69 Colebroke Row fame. Another killer space, this one sleek and hip, but for me the cocktails were just ok. My main issue is that the menu is very heavy on vodka (because he is using a lot of interesting flavors, so wanting that blank slate) but I just prefer the bigger flavor of a drink based on gin or whiskey.

Obviously, the drinks are gorgeous. Untitled is a full restaurant and the Japanese inspired menu looked good. If in the area I'd pop in and order some food!

Just a few doors down is the cozy and cute Three Sheets. Bartenders had been answering our "where do you like?" question with this spot and we weren't disappointed. The bottled French 75 was delicious! It's a tiny spot with a tiny rotation of cocktails. Go.

We wrapped up that first night at Cub, the newest from Mr. Lyan of Dandelyan, in partnership with others. The restaurant offers small plates with cocktail pairings and is reminiscent of the most hipster diner ever.

Service was great although our drinks and dishes were a bit hit or miss. Some were excellent while others were really really not. I think they are still finding their footing. The tasting menu with pairings was only £55 so at least we weren't out a bunch.

The next day Kate, Forest, and I made our way to The Distillery, a hotel with restaurants, on Portobello Road and had a tapas brunch at GinTonica. I had a gintonic made with the namesake gin, which was quite good. Unfortunately the rest of our meal was not. Our first bites of tinned boquerones on toasty garlicky bread had us hopeful, but after a few bland dishes and then sending back "crispy" potatoes bravos because they were soggy, and having them returned the exact same way we gave up.

Our server nicely sent out a pistachio salt caramel cheesecake on the house which was delicious, so at least we ended on a high note!

We were then off on the Gin Journey of Notting Hill tour. We had booked in advance and met the rest of the ~16 people at Mam Vietnamese restaurant where our tour guide Mickel started us off with tastes of a couple of gins, refreshing Tom Collins and then followed up with boozy overproof gin "mojitos" with chartreuse. And this was just the first of 5 stops!

At The Italian Job we were served a lemon gin and limoncello cocktail and the girls and I decided to order a few more bites of food.

A short bus ride later and we visited the beautiful 108 Brasserie, home of the Marleybone Distillery, who's gin still is tiny! The gin and tonics were not however! At this point some folks on the tour (not us!) were getting really smashed! Almost everyone was a local and I think it was just a good afternoon of drinking for them, without having to drive. People even chided me about not finishing all my drinks!!!

Next up, Old Mary's, a funny speakeasy of sorts. Upon entering it looks like a dive bar but the menu read full of nice classics. We were served a gin tonic sort of cocktail. It might have had St Germain. Things were fuzzy at this point...

The grand finale was a stop at Trailer Happiness, which I was very much looking forward to! Mickel gave everyone a quiz (but just gave us minis of Martin Miller gin as he knew we would get all the questions right!) and the winners proceeded to drink those minis straight down! The tour guests were really having a good, loud, messy time!

We finished our tour cocktail, got ourselves a table of our own away from the fray, and ordered another round off the menu. This a fun, kitschy tiki bar with lovely drinks. For sure one to visit if you are in the Portobello Road area.

The thing with the Gin Journey was that we rarely had a drink off any of the regular menus (besides a gin & tonic) so it is hard to say how these bars actually are. I don't think the other patrons minded but if you are wanting to really experience individual bars, this may not be for you. If you just want to drink a bunch of gin all day though, sign up now!

We made one more stop, on our own this time, to 9 Lives bar, which was quite near our apartment. Our friend Caitlin was waiting for us there. Shortly after we ordered our drinks, the space went dark with servers wrapping glow sticks around their arms and heads. We thought it was just what they did but turns out they were participating in Earth Hour! It's a cool bar with exposed concrete and indoor palm trees. Our drinks here were excellent, and it was super nice to see one of the great bartenders who use to be at Berners Tavern behind the stick. It was even nicer when he delivered some lovely snacks and a gratis cocktail!

Last day, last crawl. Forest and I were on our own and decided, spur of the moment, to do a "grand hotel bar" crawl. My favorite type! We started at The Ned, which has been recently renovated.

The entire lobby is a bar and on Sunday it was also a multi-station buffet for Sunday Roast complete with live music. Later in the evening it would turn into a swing dance party. The space is beautiful but we had other places to hit so we were one-and-done.

The last time I was at Artesian, I wasn't so impressed. Winner of many awards, the original staff then departed and it was left floundering. Recently though Paris' Little Red Door bar manager Remy Savage was brought on board to revamp the menu and breathe new life. And boy has he. It certainly didn't hurt that Forest and he are friends and he was excited to show us (a lot!) of their new drinks.

There were so many beautiful drinks, a gorgeous illustrated menu, wonderful engaging service, and even a little tour of their "lab". We had a fantastic time! I see many new awards in Artesian's future!

We were ready for some nightcap martinis at this point so walked to The Connaught Hotel and their famous martini trolley bar.  I love this bar so much! It's so pretty, so timeless, and they make a damn beautiful martini! It's also expensive AF! It will continue to be on my go-to list while in London.

Last stop, Dukes Bar. I hadn't been here before but was very much looking forward to trying out their famous martini, which is reported to have been Ian Fleming's inspiration for James Bond's martini.

Dukes uses pre-chilled gin, shakes it, and serves it to the brim off their martini trolly. I generally just go for one of those three things. But when in London after all...

All London photos here.

Other posts from this trip:

Hamilton & Other Hijinks in London
The English Spirit
An Introduction to Unicorns
The 45th
Big Castle, Small Distillery, Highlands
A Slice of Skye
Oban & the Isle of Mull
A Wee Time in Glasgow

Hamilton & Other Hijinks in London

Trip date: March 2018



Everyone knows that the hit Broadway musical Hamilton has swept the nation! But it also crossed the pond to jolly old England where the tickets are just slightly easier to get. My girlfriends who are based in Europe snagged four tickets and very kindly invited me along! Having seen it in Seattle I was super excited to see it again, and the opportunity for a girls weekend was just the cherry on top!

I cashed in a bunch of miles and got myself a round trip Business Class on British Air. I'd spend four days in London with the girls, then four days in Edinburgh with my BFF, and then one week on my own driving around Scotland! I was OTT excited!



The BA lounge at SeaTac is nothing special (why are American airline lounges crap compared to international cities?) but there is a small trolley of mini sandwiches, fruit, cheese, etc. Another counter offers non-alcoholic drinks. There is a bar the size of a coat closet where you order real drinks and I was very happy with the martini I got there (airport standards in place).

My flight over was on a 777 which has a very strange 2-4-2 configuration. I was seated in one of the middle seats which I was able to trade for an aisle; the 2 in the middle are super cozy which would be great traveling as a couple. The window seat on the 2 config side is definitely the most private seat but I wasn't able to finagle that this time.

I had a lovely 9-hour direct flight to London, which was just enough time to have a four-course meal paired with wines, watch a movie, and go to sleep in my lay flat bed. The seats on BA seem overly complicated (even coming with a full instruction manual) but they are very comfy and come with mini mattresses and nice blankets and down comforters.



I had purchased my ticket on the Heathrow Express online in advance so once I had my bag it was a quick 15 minutes, for about $15 to Paddington Station. From here I grabbed a black taxi to our Airbnb in Southwerk, that took almost an hour even though it was just lunchtime!



I took a nap while the girls were out at lunch so that I wouldn't fall asleep in the theater. It was 5 1/2 hours until showtime!

Our apartment was in such a great location, right outside the Borough Market! We easily walked to the Shard that evening for drinks at Gong. We had reservations and when they sat us they mentioned that as soon as a table next to one of the windows opened up they would move us to it. I thought that was very nice!

The views of London from the 52nd floor are spectacular and the space was very elegant. It took over 30 minutes to get our drinks though, which meant only one round before the show, and they were all just ok. I'd say go to Gong but have a glass of champagne. It's definitely worth it for the views!



We grabbed a taxi to the Victoria Palace Theater, almost missing curtain call as traffic was so bad! The show was great but we all thought that the vocals weren't as strong as on the album, and I felt there was a bit of exuberant patiotism missing from the all British troupe. None of that stopped us from singing, chair dancing, and having a great time!

The night wrapped up in a divey bar, laughing and having some good fun with a bunch of drunk Brits. They do love to let loose!



We had tickets the next morning to the Modigliani exhibit at the Tate Modern. While we were all getting ready, Melanie went to the Borough Market and brought us back coffee and bacon & egg butties (bacon & egg sandwiches to you and me!) how great is that?

The exhibit was really unique. They had an interesting selection of his paintings, the vast majority were owned privately, as well as some sculpture. Most of it I had never seen before. They also had a VR exhibit which Forest and I did; it plopped you right inside his studio and surrounded you with bits of his work, his life, and even his views of his Paris neighborhood. The experience was so real that both of us even felt the wind on our face as the rain started outside his studio window!



Before leaving the Tate we all grabbed a glass of wine and took in the views of the city and the Thames from the 6th-floor bar. A great view and stop that not everyone knows about.

(Not far from the Tate is the Banksy Print Gallery, which Mel and I stopped into later in the day. Some interesting stuff by both Banksy and other artists represented by Lazinc.)



It was time for lunch and I had made reservations at Kricket in SOHO. When in London- Indian food! Kricket was cool, modern, pretty, and delicious! Our waiter nicely gave us a bunch of recommendations and they were spot on; go mainly with the vegetable options and just add one or two proteins. We all loved it! Highly recommended.

After a pretty epic day of drinking, four of stopped into Arabica on our walk home through the Borough Market. We had to wait a bit as it was a busy Saturday night but it wasn't too bad. We ordered a selection of their Middle Eastern dishes and everything was great!

Another morning a few of us went to brunch at Duck & Waffle which is on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower. The restaurant is good, my duck confit and waffle was great, but the draw here is definitely the views. Spectacular! And different from those you get at The Shard. And it's open 24/7 so if you need a late night spot...

Afterwards, we went to the London Mithraeum at Bloomberg Space. The remains of an ancient temple from the cult of Mithras was found during construction and it's open to the public (and free!). There are some very cool glass cases of random items they found dating from about 2000 years ago! And it's all in the middle of The City.

By our last day, the other ladies had left for home and Forest and I packed up to head to Edinburgh. We got to Kings Cross Station a bit early and treated ourselves to a fancy little lunch at Plum & Spilt Milk, complete with champagne, wine, and full English fry up. Ahhh, vacation!!!

London post on cocktails coming... cuz you know there were some cocktail crawls!



All London photos here.

Other posts from this trip:

The English Spirit
An Introduction to Unicorns
The 45th
Big Castle, Small Distillery, Highlands
A Slice of Skye
Oban & the Isle of Mull
A Wee Time in Glasgow

Last Call London!

Trip date: October 2016

My absolutely over-the-top awesome trip was coming to an end but not without one last fun-packed day. We had planned a group brunch at Mac & Wild with some local friends. This place is delicious! Forest described the concept as "gun to table" and that is spot on. In fact each day the menu clearly states who shot the game and from where, as well as which farms provided the beef and which breed it was.

The restaurant was really loud which made it difficult to catch up, but the food was excellent. We shared haggis mac and cheese for the table, and then while the others all ordered the famed burger (1 venison patty, 1 beef patty) I opted for the Sunday roast. The platter was amazing, with slices of rare venison nestled inside a huge popover, a boat of gravy, and roasted vegetables. The popover was bit drier than I like but overall it was a good roast!

Forest and I said goodbye to our friends, grabbed an Uber and headed to the Bethnal Green area. It was the last day of London Cocktail Week and we were up for one last cocktail crawl. This neighborhood is out there a bit but it is kind of an up-and-coming area and fun to check out. Our first stop was the East London Liquor Company.

As the name implies, they are distilling their own spirits and serving up cocktails made with them. I wasn't interested in the LCW drink so I chose one with their gin, Lillet, and violet. The cocktail was ok, too heavy on the violet for me, but neither of us were blown away by the drinks or the service here. And when we stopped into the bottle shop to inquire about a few things on the shelves, the woman working knew absolutely nothing about the products.

We enjoyed a nice 20-minute walk to our next destination, Satan's Whiskers. This may have been one of my favorite bars on this trip! Our bartender Dan was excellent; he made fantastic drinks while chatting with us about our visit, and telling us a bit about the area, and his thoughts on other bars in London. The atmosphere is awesome, just big enough as not to be tiny, cool decor with requisite taxidermy, and super friendly staff. And delicious drinks! We started with their LCW daiquiri special which was delicious using Bacardi 8 yr rum.

This area probably isn't one that most people visiting London will be in, but if you find yourself near, do yourself a favor and get into this bar!

From here we headed a few blocks away towards the overhead train tracks and to the row of bars and restaurants housed underneath, known as Paradise Row. One of them is Sager & Wilde, a two-level bar with a cozy "living room" upstairs, that is dimly lit and very industrial feeling.

The cocktail menu here is quite unique; I started with a mezcal drink made with burnt and clarified milk, bay leaf, caramel, cinnamon, and lemon.

For round two we each ordered a different expression from their Old Fashioned menu; mine contained olive oil while Forest's had toasted coconut. Again, if you happen to be in this interesting area of London, I'd absolutely recommend checking out Sager & Wilde (they looked to have some tasty food as well).

We had our Uber drop us off back in our 'hood at Percy & Founders for one last martini. And with that our awesome time in London, partaking in both the World's 50 Best Bar awards and London Cocktail Week wrapped up.

The next morning I took an Uber to Paddington Station, just 10 minutes away,  where I boarded the Heathrow Express train to the airport. Nothing could have been easier or nicer than using this service. I just wish I would have done it on the way in also! I booked my ticket online, found the track easily at the station, and boarded the very nice train (they run every 15 minutes) for my 15-minute ride to Heathrow. No stops, no crowded tube, quiet and clean.

At Heathrow the train has a special platform with dedicated lifts up to the departure floor. Seriously, this is the only way to go!

I checked in for my flight, was invited to go through Fast Track security since I was flying business class, and as I was the only one in the queue was crazy quick and easy! After a little duty-free shopping, I checked into The Clubhouse that Delta shares with Virgin. Now this was a serious lounge. Table service, both a regular menu and also a deli with smoked salmon, sliced meats, cheeses, yogurts, etc. The lounge is one of the nicest I have been in with a spa, library, showers, quiet rooms, lovely bar, etc.

I chose a few things from the deli, ordered a mimosa, and some coffee, and caught up on some journaling. The only thing not great about The Clubhouse is that the location was a good 15+ minute walk to my gate, where I was the first to board. Gotta have time for a glass of Duetz before take off!

Shortly after take off, lunch was served and I was happy to see there was a choice of Indian food! Oh London! And unlike most airline meals, this one was really good!

Unfortunately the same could not be said for my seat whose lie-flat feature was broken which I found out when I went to take a nap. Fortunately the nice gentleman sitting behind me traded seats with me as he said he was going to work the entire time. Classy.

A few hours later I woke up to a snack service of salad and Cubano sandwich, also very good.

And then the sights of home came into view. Thank you London for such a super fun holiday!

All London photos here.

All posts from this trip:
World's 50 Best Bars 2016
Let's London Cocktail Week
London Delivers
From Brunch to Bed in Londontown

From Brunch to Bed in Londontown

Trip date: October 2016

As I've mentioned, our flat was in such a great location, so many things within walking distance! Day four started with me taking a quick walk to the new Bar Termini in Soho. This is the new venture from Tony Conigliaro of 69 Colebrook Row and is really charming. A tiny cubby-hole of a spot, the bar opens during the day serving espresso, light snacks, classic cocktails, and incredible service. I had a quick Spritz but would have loved to have a little sandwich and hang out for a bit. Even though they haven't been around for long, they hit the 50 Best Bar list at number 30! Be sure to check this spot out for a bite and a sit down.

On to Dean Street Townhouse for brunch with my friend Ally who moved to London from the Bay Area last year. This is a chic little restaurant, with a few rooms decorated in comfy fabric covered chairs, another that is very bistro like with red leather banquets, all connected to the hotel of the same name. We had a delicious brunch, mine complete with mimosa and a mini-English fry up (full size also available), and an even better time catching up. Another great spot in Soho!

Forest swung in to say hello and then the two of us were off to check out the London Cocktail Week Cocktail Village. It's like the Olympic Village, only boozier. The village was at Spitalfields Market which was an easy tube ride from Soho (I had kept my Oyster Card from a prior visit and had just topped it up at the kiosk at the airport). There were about 40 different pop-up bars, all serving £5 cocktails. My favorite was the Sipsmith bar and their London Cup which is their pre bottled take on Pimm's Cup.

For snacks, there was a great truck serving delicious Scotch Eggs to help soak up all the booze. Yum!

We wrapped up our visit to the village and stopped in at the very pretty Blixen bar connected to the market to sample their LCW drink and sit down for a bit. The space here is cute, and they have a nice amount of outside seating so it is a good stop if you're in the market, but I wouldn't go out of my way (at least not for the drinks, the food, however, may be very good).

Back on the tube, we made our way to Farringdon to Hix Oyster and Chop House, which is just outside the Smithfield meat market. Forest and I were both really looking forward to some oysters and these did not disappoint. I didn't write down the species that we got but look at how big and flat the shells are! Also I have never had oysters served to me with the top lid set on! And those sausages were tasty as well.

We also ordered the LCW special which was called Gremlin No. 2. Not only was it delicious but it was a beautiful green concoction; gin, house-made parsley syrup, lemon juice, absinthe, pepper tincture, and cardamon infused apricot liqueur. The only thing at Hix that was a bit off was the bartender. This guy was like ice, it was actually funny he was so un-customer service oriented. I've been to other Hix restaurants and in general, have always found them to have great food and excellent drinks, I'd recommend.

Slurping down the last of our oysters and our cocktail, we were off to the new Oriole Bar, located on "Poultry Avenue" at the Smithfield Market. The dodgy-esque entrance had a doorman checking reservations (highly recommended) who then ushered us in and down stairs (this is the 2nd bar by the folks from Nightjar and the entrance is a similar experience). When we got to the bar itself we were greeted by a luxe room that seemed a little 70's Hollywood, a little tropical, and a lot swanky. This time, we were seated at the bar (after reminding them that I had requested this in my reservation), and were presented with gorgeous menus filled with charming anecdotes disguised as cocktails lists.

Even the water was flavored and garnished in a lovely manner. We had a great time here, especially with our bartender who had a certain flair of his own and was very serious (but friendly) about his job. Each bartender seems to be responsible for a certain area of the bar and therefore the particular drinks which are made there. Like in restaurant kitchens. Sometimes that means that one drink may be delivered before the other.

As with Nightjar, it's all about the creative vessel and garnish game here. One drink had an ice ball carved like a rose, scented with rose water while another drink had a marzipan bird flying across a cube with flowers frozen in it. When we asked for our tab we were presented with two miniature ice cream cones. Adorable! Too bad the ice cream flavor was mushroom! Ugh, but still adorable! This is a fantastic bar, another new one to the scene and hitting the 50 Best Bar list at 32. Get there!

We weren't quite done for the evening and grabbed an Uber to head to the ultra posh Savoy Hotel on the banks of the River Thames. Inside we made our way to American Bar which has received massive amounts of kudos and is currently #2 on the 50 Best Bar list.  Right from the start, the service was amazing. We didn't have reservations and this was Saturday night; the hostess told us it would be a 30-minute wait but unlike last night when that was a lie, here she came and got us in 15.

We were seated at a cozy little table in the main room near the piano (I don't know what it is about the Brits but they love live music in bars!), given some upscale bar snacks, and a beautiful menu of cocktails.

Our drinks were wonderful and averaging £18 each, expensive! But we were having such a fun time and the service and atmosphere were so good that we decided to stay for a nightcap martini.

We settled up and sticking with the very British experiences we had all evening, asked the doorman grab us a London Black Cab for the trip home. In the past I had found these to be quite expensive but it seems they are competitive in price now, or at least to the cocktails!

Other posts from this trip:
World's 50 Best Bars 2016
Let's London Cocktail Week
London Delivers
Last Call London

All London photos here.