I live in Brixton.

I've been defending it for years, and like everyone else who dwells in our fair hood, keep hearing it's on the ups.

I'm still waiting.

Sure, we have a couple of new (ish) haunts - there's Plan B (so loud), BBG (so expensive) and Harlem (so not a members bar/hotel as promised), but there's still nowhere we actually want to hang out (bar O Cantino de Portugal, of course).

But we're hoping the latest B-town renovation is going to start the revolution.

The Crypt's been revamped - the grot's been cleaned out and the look's been cleaned up. Now known as Babalou (yes, we know, sounds a bit like the blue bear in the Disney movie), the bar/restaurant has a Moroccan theme complete with white walls and velvet booths. So quite a change then.

The menu seems to be your usual Euro fusion (the chef toured with a F1 team for ages), but the drinks are the interesting part here: the Otto martini is garnished with Halloumi and the Still Flip combines port, cognac, egg yolk and stilton (A+ for creativity, we just hope it comes with a Smint).

It all sounds good - we are very, very hopeful. We just hope that sweat still doesn't drip from the ceiling.