Buy wines at Gerry's

A well-stocked little off license on Old Compton Street in Soho, one of the best areas for London off licenses, Gerry's was founded in 1984 by Michael Kyprianou, the former manager of the now closed Del Monico's off-licence further down the street.


Today, the shop boasts a fantastic range of wines and spirits, interspersed with hand-written labels, and pictures of those who appreciate the shop and other bits of paraphernalia accumulated over the years.

For more, see http://www.gerrys.uk.com

Buy whiskies at Milroy's of Soho

Founded in the 1960s by brothers John and Wallace Milroy, Milroy's of Soho, on Greek Street, started life as a wine merchant. However, we are told that as the market for single malt whisky developed, the brothers became London ambassadors, and have been serving the people of Soho with fine whisky ever since.


When your author passed by yesterday afternoon, the shop was just gearing up for one of its regular whisky tastings - at a very civilised 5pm - and the team who manage the store today appear to be just as passionate about good whisky.

The store brands itself as the place to go for whisky in London, and your author is not able to argue, and if budgetary constraints prevent the purchase of anything as pricey as the 50 Year Old Highland Park at £10,000 a bottle, there's always Johnnie Walker miniatures for £2.50 a pop.

For more, see http://www.milroys.co.uk/

Investigate the Malt Whisky Room at the Vintage House

Situated at 42 Old Compton Street, in the heart of Soho, the Vintage House is a family business, founded during the Second World War. The quintessential off-licence, it is excellently stocked, claiming to offer the World's largest list of malt whiskies.


During his time here, owner Malcolm Mullin has, apparently, sold wine to The Beatles and cigars to Angelina Jolie, mixed with legendary London gangsters, been shot at, and had a front row seat on all goings on in Soho for nearly forty years.

Alongside the whiskies, which are mostly to be found in a special room at the back of the store, the Vintage House also sells Armagnacs dating back as far as 1879, and an excellent range of fine wines, Cuban cigars, Liqueurs and other spirits.

Prices are as you might expect in this area of town, but if you're looking for something special for Christmas it is an excellent bet. For more information, click here.

Sip cocktails in a caravan at Barrio North

When the people who designed Barrio North, a 'neighbourhood DJ bar' in Islington, were looking to decorate their bar, they settled on a rather left-field seating solution. They installed a caravan.


Billed on the bar's website as 'La Carvana', a mis-spelling of the Spanish Caravana, it started life in 1976 as an 2-birth ACE touring caravan, before being snapped up on ebay and installed in a bar on Essex road to seat up to 15 people whilst they neck cocktails in what is cringingly referred to in decorations as an 'alcoholiday'.

It's an interesting feature, and the bar is reasonable, as long as you're there during one of their regular happy hours, though annoyingly they make you 'join' the bar to take advantage.

For more on the Caravan, visit http://www.barrionorth.com/bookings.php, but make sure your speakers are turned down first.

Watch people at the Riverfront at BFI Southbank

Given recent weather, your author thought he would recommend a spot today that is good in both sunshine and showers. Nestled beneath Waterloo Bridge, which also provides shelter for the adjacent book market, the Riverfront Bar and Kitchen at the BFI Southbank is another triumph for the organisation, providing an excellent spot to sit and watch the world - or the South Bank at least - go by.


Being the Southbank, it all comes at a price, and your author tends to buy half pints and avoid eating, as he is notoriously cheap. However, it is lovely and the outdoor area in front, looking out towards the river, is particularly pleasant.

It is open Monday - Saturday from 9am until 11pm and Sundays from 10am - 11pm. For more, see http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/visitor_information/food_and_drink

Eat and Drink at the Palmerston, Lordship Lane

Your author is often criticised by his friends for his East London bias, so he took a research bike ride to South London on Saturday, visiting many fantastic places, including a return trip to the Palmerston, on Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.


It's a lovely little pub, with two wood panelled rooms, and a good selection of food and drink. Over at fancyapint, they bemoan its conversion into another gastropub, but your author has never known it as anything else, so he's reasonably at ease about it. Having said that, it is a bit annoying that during some periods they wont let drinkers sit by the window, even when no one is eating.

The Palmerston began its new life as a gastropub and, we are told, dropped the 'Lord' from its name, in February 2004. Since then, the pub and Head Chef Jamie Younger, have won a range of accolades, and is really proud to have been named the ‘Best Gastro Pub in London, Gold award’ at the LBC, Independent Newspaper - ‘Living London’ 2006 awards, have been listed by Restaurant Magazine as 59th Best place to eat in the UK, and having been given a rosette by the AA. Presumably these are all good awards so he has every reason to be happy with his efforts.

For more information, http://www.thepalmerston.net/

Grab a cup of tea at the Lido Café

Newly refurbished, and housed in the old changing block of Lansbury's Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park, Company of Cooks' Lido Café is a pleasant enough spot if the sun is shining and you can manage to avoid the crowds.


Light and airy, with seating beside the Serpentine itself, it's a good spot for a cup of tea, a leisurely breakfast, or if you're in the mood a range of wines and beers.

The Lido Café opens at 8am and closes at 7.30pm in May, 8pm in June and 9pm in July and August. For more, see here.

Have a Pie and a Pint at the Camel, Bethnal Green

Your author spent a very pleasant evening around Bethnal Green this week, and following a reasonably good quality open mic night at the Gallery Cafe, finally got to pop into the Camel on Globe Road.


Understandably in this area it's going to be full of art and media tw*ts, but there was actually a very good mix of people in the pub, and it was as pretty inside as it is outside, with a mix of old and new features blended together in a considerate way.

The pub has a good range of drinks, with some well kept ales in the mix, and your author understands that the 'gourmet' (whatever that means) pies are well worth a try. At £8.95, they're at the top end of the pie pricing scale so one would hope so.

Your author has just done a search on the internet and found out that his review is very similar to that of Time Out. This probably means someone should start paying him for this but he promises there was no copying. Judge for yourself here, or for more on the pies see the East London Advertiser here.

_{^Picture by rjw1^}

Drink with beardy old men

The Great British Beer Festival, organised by the Campaign for Real Ale, has been running since the late 1970s, offering beardy real ale fans their dream combination of around 450 different beers alongside pub games, live music, pies, pasties and all kinds of pub snacks.


It's not just for sandal-wearing middle aged men with an interest in steam trains, however, and when your author popped by for a couple of hours yesterday the clientèle was a rich and varied tapestry of beer fans, some of whom were even female. However, it should be said that the weather was much better outside than in the dull shed-like Earls Court Exhibition Centre, and this is probably not the place for teetotallers.

Even so, it is a fairly entertaining destination for beer-drinkers in poor weather, and there are certainly a lot of beers on offer (though more should be from Gloucestershire). Entry is £10 on the door and tomorrow is wackily themed as 'hat day'.

The Great British Beer Festival runs until Saturday at Earls Court Exhibition Centre. For more information visit the website at http://gbbf.camra.org.uk

Drink at the Albertine Wine Bar

The Albertine Wine Bar, in Shepherd's Bush, is a lovely little place, which serves wine, food and beer in ample portions in an excellent atmosphere which, thankfully for the Bush, is in no way antipodean.


It's just off the Green at 1 Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush. For more information, visit http://www.timeout.com/london/bars/reviews/12780.html

Click here to see the location on a map.

Drink in Mark Twain, Alfred Tennyson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's local

Down an alleyway marked by a distinctive sign on Fleet Street, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese is another good Sam Smiths pub with another good story. The pub was one of the first to be rebuilt after the Great Fire of London and is recorded as existing on this site for more than 100 years before, and even earlier as a guest house belonging to a nearby Carmelite Monastery. Indeed, the pub was famously referred to in Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.


Legendary regulars include Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Tennyson and Mark Twain, as well as Dr. Samuel Johnson whose quote gave this site its title. It is also another listed in CAMRA's Regional Inventory for London, Pub Interiors of Special Historic Interest, which is generally a yardstick of interesting pubs.

Inside, the lack of natural light only adds to the experience and dulls the senses to make Samuel Smith's brews taste as best they can. It certainly has a charm and is a Central London pub with less crowds and more authenticity than most. Its so authentic your author even swears there was sawdust on the ground at the last visit to absorb spit and spillages.

For more information visit the page on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Cheshire_Cheese.

Click here to see the location on a map.

_{^Picture from flickr courtesy of Tjeerd^}

Lates at the London Transport Museum

A reader writes to recommend the London Transport Museum's Lates programme. The Museum itself gives a great insight into the history of London's transport system from horse-drawn buses to the modern underground, but your author was largely ignorant of the Lates events until recently. Perhaps this can be put down to the lengthy refurbishment which closed the Museum from 2005-7.


As with almost all Museums nowadays, the Lates take place on Friday nights. They are fairly regular and tickets cost £8, which is the usual entry fee. For this you get the run of most of the museum, as well as the chance of some live music, DJs, film and other events based around the evening's theme between 6.30pm and 9pm.

To museum geeks like your author this sounds fun, and there is also a well stocked bar to help the evening go a bit smoother for those whose passion for transport is only fleeting. So why not head down to the website at http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whatson/126.aspx to see what is in store for the next one.

Many thanks to David Singleton who passed on this idea. Much appreciated. If you have any ideas you think could be included here please do send them on. If nothing else, you will help save someone from the pains of writers block!

Click here to view the location on a map.

Seek sustenance under Tower Bridge

In an arch right underneath Tower Bridge, with a view outwards directly onto the South Side of the river, is the Most Cafe Bar.

The bar has occupied its current space, known as the 'Horrace Jones Vault', for a few years now but it was originally used as the coal store for the bridge's steam engine rooms, and the coal was loaded into the store directly from the river beneath the bridge where the window now looks out.

When the bridge was converted from steam to electricity in 1976 the vault was converted into the garage for the "bridge master" and subsequently a gift shop, which closed in 2001.

In 2003 the current owners got hold of it and spent three years converting it into the bar which now occupies the space. The name is, apparently, derived from 'moct' the Russian word for bridge. For more information visit the website at http://www.mostcafebar.co.uk/

Click here to see the location on a map.

^{^Picture from flickr courtesy of paul-simpson.org^}

Drink in Jack the Ripper's Local

The Ten Bells, on Commercial Street in East London, was reputedly Jack the Ripper's local pub, and was also the favourite haunt of two of his six victims; Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly.

A pub has been open here since 1752, and apparently derives it's name from bells of Hawksmoor's imposing Christ Church Spitalfields, which sits beside the pub (though the church now has twelve bells).

Between 1976 to 1988, it was known as "The Jack the Ripper", but the name was subsequently changed back following protests from a feminist campaign group.

Nowadays it's your usual slightly dirty off-Brick-Lane drinking venue, with plenty of asymmetric haircuts and people talking loudly about how brilliant they are, but if you can get over that it's a fairly pleasant place for a drink, especially on a summer's evening.

The nearest tube is Liverpool Street. For more information visit the Jack the Ripper casebook page at http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/tenbells.html.

Click here to see the location on a map.

^{^Picture from flickr courtesy of usm photos^}