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Brick & Liquor, a swish addition to Tooting’s ever-expanding portfolio of nice neighbourhood venues, takes cocktail making very seriously. The menu is navigated via a graph, its axes based on how adventurous you’re feeling and how tipsy you fancy getting.
All cocktails are classics with a twist (and a pun). A Pisco Sour becomes a Pisco Fever with the addition of basil; a Manhattan embellished with crème de bananes is a Banhattan. Purists might balk, but they were really good – a little too good in fact (the former was particularly light and zesty). There’s also a good little wine selection.
But while the liquor’s in order, this place falls at the food. It was out of a third of the menu, so what we did order was more out of desperation than desire. Lamb skewers were chewy, the marinade undetectable; cauliflower couscous was mushy and depressing, the kind of thing you’d eat out of Tupperware at your desk. ‘Maybe they ran out of all of the good things,’ we wondered. Entirely possible, but if they can whip the food up to the same standard as the drinks, this would be a brilliantly well-rounded local.