Sketch Gallery, on Conduit Street, is highly recommended. The modern British/French food is divine (the beef tartare is astoundingly tasty) but it’s the interior design, walls adorned by electronic projections instead of wallpaper, that takes your breath away.

www.sketch.uk.com

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Geisha Bar is a new cocktail bar in Soho. It has an excellent cocktail menu, good DJs and sound system, and a stylish interior. Its clientele is mostly gay, though I don't think a straight customer would feel uncomfortable.

75 Charing Cross Road,
London
WC2H 0NE
www.geisha-bar.co.uk

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It's nearly perfect: stunning building, great food, lovely cocktails, good-looking staff, regularly changing art exhibitions, a garden with deckchairs and cool industrial loos in the basement.

Erratic service, especially when the owner/manager is in, mars it. Plus she wears really strong scent.

But I still end up going back there, and when it is good it is very very good.

Afternoon tea with cocktails in the garden of an old power station is certainly unusual.

Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, Wapping Wall
E1W 3ST
Wapping
020 7680 2080
www.thewappingproject.com

Once you've eaten (alot) you could do worse than stroll back to Canary Wharf through the park opposite and then along the river

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A Thai restaurant down the bottom of the Isle of Dogs. I wouldn't come out here for the sake of the restaurant, but if you are out in Greenwich and fancy a riverside cocktail, then it is a short stroll from the foot tunnel or Island Gardens DLR.
Food is good, though not super-cheap (about £9 for a curry and about £2 for rice). Service is friendly.

But really it is all about the location on the river.

www.elephantroyale.com/
Locke's Wharf, Westferry Road
E14 3AN
Tel: 020 7987 7999

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It's a tiny space - decked out in retro burlesque style, entered by a dramatic (if small) glass entrance just in front of the Lyceum. A former men's loo it is now rammed with high-tech stuff (sms jukebox, automatically opaque loo doors) and ambitiously holds shows (can't imagine how) every night at 10.

We went in for an early evening cocktail - all drinks 1/3rd off before 8pm. Cocktails strong but chemical, though the wine list looked okay. To be honest it's just feels like a pleasantly odd place to be drinking - huddled beneath the pavement sitting on leather seats which are shaped like buttocks. Maybe I wouldn't go back, but if you are in the area it's worth a visit.

Zero Aldwych
London WC2r 0HT
www.cellardoor.biz

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A lovely new branch of an all-day dim sum restaurant. Really fantastic staff, truly great food, excellent, good quality and not too pricey cocktails.

Plus, order the Jasmine Flower tea - beautifully served, art in a glass that tastes lovely. Our food (a lot of it) was served a gentle but constant pace to our table on the patio outdoors. And when we left we were shocked that the bill was only just over £40 inc. service, drinks and far too many dim sum. Fantastic. The drinks were nice enough to justify just going for a couple of pre-theatre/ post-shopping cocktails (made with fresh fruits, herbs and al ot of ice - ideal for summer).

On the new Festival Terrace, South Bank centre (above Giraffe et al.). Walk past Le Pain Quotidien - great for informal brunch- away from the river. 020 7960 4160, www.pingpongdimsum.com

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The best cocktail bar in the world. Lab (London Academy of Barkeepers) is on Old Compton Street and is the place to go to feel welcome and have a friendly cocktail lesson.

12 Old Compton Street (next to the cake shop)

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Tucked under the Westway at the ordinary end of Portobello Road, this Lebanese cafe/bar is charming, unpretentious and impeccably run. Eat souvlaki from terracotta plates (supplied by the Spanish supermarket across the road) - then move on to cheap cocktails while listening to funky eastern beats. The exposed brickwork and low tables might come over all Hoxton, but the pretension factor is low - and so are the prices.

299 Portobello Road, London W10 5TD. Nearest station: Ladbroke Grove

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