Time Out rating:
<strong>Rating: </strong>3/5
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<strong>Rating: </strong>3/5
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Time Out says
Fri Aug 10 2012
As a bolthole to escape the weekend Shoreditch hordes, Callooh Callay is simply frabjous. It’s regularly cited as one of London’s best bars, with a cocktail list of enormous ambition (although the current version is printed on a Pantone-style flip colour chart, which makes perusal as difficult as it sounds). Drinks change regularly, but are often made with fresh herbs, hard-to-find spirits and own-made syrups, cordials and bitters.
The main bar, with its low tables, gets very busy; through a wardrobe is a more relaxed ‘secret’ room where bookings are sometimes sat, and upstairs is a refreshingly attitude-free members’ bar (it’s free to join).
The vague ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme sits uncomfortably with the mishmash of decorative styles throughout, which smacks a bit of Shoreditch circa 2007 – there are Victorian portraits on the wall, and a wall of cassette tapes (because analogue is cool). There’s some art deco and a ‘Blockbusters’ wall of mirrors. A bit more modish is the food – sliders arrive on a twee cake display stand.
But CC doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the cocktails are always superb, even if their try-hard punny names grate a bit?(If You Don’t Gnome Me By Now, for instance, served to share in a big gnome). And if you’re going to tell us how to pronounce a Greek name, please spell it right: ‘Peresphone (pur-sef-own-ie)’.
Beer, though, is a big disappointment – bizarrely, there’s only Moosehead or Viru lagers.
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