What is it? A bar that serves food and fantastic cocktails and also has an internet cafe and a shop selling all the booze you've just drank in the bar. But that doesn't do it justice.
It's simply the best bar I think I have been in for a very long time (besides one in Prague and I'm not telling you where that is because it's mine. ALL MINE. OK?).
Spread over 3 floors, the ground floor is home to the shop, internet lounge and the bar itself. To describe it as 'a bar' is an understatement on a parallel with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon being merely a garden. This place is a mecca to booze. I counted 17 seperate types of Absinthe on the wall. 17!
The first floor is home to another room, decked out with comfy seating where you can spread out and lounge around, also a couple of raised bed/seats with curtains and a shedload of fabric in general, along a Thai type theme.
The third floor has yet another room with large sofas and chairs, and as an added bonus it's non-smoking. You do feel a bit detached from the rest of the bar but get enough of your crowd in there and it's more or less all yours.
Food, although I haven't tried it, looked tasty (spying on the plates as they came out) and entirely Thai.
It's worth taking a stool at the bar and watching the lads behind it create cocktails from the mammoth list.
In a word: quality.
42 Stonegate, York, YO1 8AS 01904 640 002
Send your feedback or queries to been.there@guardian.co.uk
Search Been there
