Mr Fogg's Residence
'Wow, what is this place?' I thought, on stepping inside. The answer was the somewhat eccentric, Mr Fogg's Residence, on Bruton Lane. Heading back to the Tube after lunch one day and feeling somewhat more friendly than usual due to the wine earlier consumed, we struck up conversation with a man in a bowler hat, who turned out to be the doorman at Mr Fogg's. He offered to show us inside, which, as I now write this, sounds a bit dodgy (but fortunately wasn't) and with an enthusiasm that only lunch time drinking engenders, we thought, 'why not?' 'Wow, what is this place?' I thought. How little I know it seems.
Our knowledge of the London drinking scene is, quite frankly, pitiful. How had I been so blissfully unaware of Mr Fogg's? We know the bars in the big hotels and a few pubs, and that's about it. Googling 'London's best cocktail bars' yielded several lists of 50 apiece of which, on average, we knew less than five. Forty five bars we had never heard of. That seemed like an opportunity. Or as Boris J suggested, 'there's no such thing as a disaster, only an opportunity, and an opportunity for a fresh disaster.' No Brexit commentary here.
Now, we like a good cocktail, but are hardly experts. This stream then can be considered less a critique and more of a guide of what's where, with a fresh pair of eyes. And bars are not like restaurants, not least, if they make you a bad drink, maybe it's £15 down the drain but you can walk out there and then. In a restaurant, by the time you realise that you are not keen, if it's a tasting menu, you might have 10 more courses still to arrive, be landlocked for three more hours and be £100+ out of pocket. It's a different proposition.
I'm reminded too of Graham Greene's novel, Our Man in Havanah, where a game of 'shot glass' chess is played. The idea is that the better chess player takes more of his opponent's pieces and is therefore required to drink more, so handicapping his performance. Genius. Along these lines, it is quite possible that the best bars we sample might leave us with very little memory of the evening out we enjoyed. The blog posts may even be written with the effects still evident. I hear you, Lord help us all.
In other words, the CC Cocktail blog posts will be what they will be, but please don't take them as gospel. A good cocktail is a must, but doesn't everywhere do good cocktails these days? The criteria then is simply, did we have a good time there, or is it a place never to return? Let's run with it and see how we go. Anyway, must dash, I hear Mr Fogg calling.
Our knowledge of the London drinking scene is, quite frankly, pitiful. How had I been so blissfully unaware of Mr Fogg's? We know the bars in the big hotels and a few pubs, and that's about it. Googling 'London's best cocktail bars' yielded several lists of 50 apiece of which, on average, we knew less than five. Forty five bars we had never heard of. That seemed like an opportunity. Or as Boris J suggested, 'there's no such thing as a disaster, only an opportunity, and an opportunity for a fresh disaster.' No Brexit commentary here.
Now, we like a good cocktail, but are hardly experts. This stream then can be considered less a critique and more of a guide of what's where, with a fresh pair of eyes. And bars are not like restaurants, not least, if they make you a bad drink, maybe it's £15 down the drain but you can walk out there and then. In a restaurant, by the time you realise that you are not keen, if it's a tasting menu, you might have 10 more courses still to arrive, be landlocked for three more hours and be £100+ out of pocket. It's a different proposition.
I'm reminded too of Graham Greene's novel, Our Man in Havanah, where a game of 'shot glass' chess is played. The idea is that the better chess player takes more of his opponent's pieces and is therefore required to drink more, so handicapping his performance. Genius. Along these lines, it is quite possible that the best bars we sample might leave us with very little memory of the evening out we enjoyed. The blog posts may even be written with the effects still evident. I hear you, Lord help us all.
In other words, the CC Cocktail blog posts will be what they will be, but please don't take them as gospel. A good cocktail is a must, but doesn't everywhere do good cocktails these days? The criteria then is simply, did we have a good time there, or is it a place never to return? Let's run with it and see how we go. Anyway, must dash, I hear Mr Fogg calling.
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