Earlham Street Clubhouse; Covent Garden, London

There are a lot of good places to drink in Covent Garden, but also a lot of massively dire ones. The scale of dire there ranges from the hipster, moustached and uncomfortable, to the downright loutish. If I see another trilby-toting Eastern-European butchering my Old Fashioned again, asking for £14 with a straight face, I suspect lime wedges won’t be the only things crushed under his muddler. Customarily, I avoid both it and its elbowing tourists, and dip in for carefully selected outings, sticking to my boroughs for sessions of drinking.

But now, hope springs eternal, in the form of 90s preppy America. Probably the only time you’ll hear me say that. Earlham Street Clubhouse has opened, just round the corner from Leicester Square and up the road from Flesh & Buns. An underground lair, designed by some award winning design whose name I never remember but probably should – all quirky battered wood, copper bar tops, exposed brick and squishy suede. Yummy. Its burrowing underground rooms have booths sunk into the walls, some with their own phone and a vintage gas pump serving beer straight to the table. Somewhat cool. The menus are attached to the ceilings by lanyards, waiting to be yanked down for a peruse. 

And what a peruse it is. A veritable tome of cocktails, all reasonably (for London) priced around the £7 mark. I sampled more than a few including their ‘Rolling with the Homies’ and ‘Power Ranger’, a kind of Bourbon sour shaken too with red wine and apricot jam. As a wholly-transparent (not even self-confessed) drinks snob, I tested out the bar tenders by getting them to go off the menu and make something new for me. They passed. Our bartender (more of a cute, mildly geeky type than said trilby-toting tosspot) crafted me something marvellous out of vermouth and other ingredients that I was then too pissed and now too sober to remember.  

Food wise, their offering is pizza, and jolly nice it is too. I tried their Plain Jane (Margarita) and Screech (salami, chilli and oregano); good.