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It’s not that you’re a total snob, but (love those buts) wandering late night Shoreditch on the weekend, you can’t help noticing how much it feels scarily like Soho circa 2005: stumbling out-of-town stilettos, a little curb-side vom, the odd lilting football-yodel in the distance.
With most local areas now so inundated by the hordes, it’s high time for a West End renaissance.
START SMALL
Both Quo Vadis and Polpo have heard our pleas and recently opened their arms to non-resto drinkers. The former with its copper-laden ground-floor bar, QV, serving Paul Mant’s cracking cocktails sans the upstairs membership fee. The latter with Polpo Ciccheti, its lower-key, communal basement wine and small dish bar-space.
GO LARGE
For bigger nights out, the W Hotel’s new Wyld Bar is officially opening its doors next week. Managed by the Ignite group (Boujis, Eclipse, etc.), expect rich red décor and an oversized mirrorball for luck. So far so standard, you cry. But with the rest of the W on-site, our eager fingers are crossed for some of that club-to-hotel-room debauchery that New York does so well.
GO NUTS
Speaking of NYC, the near-fabled London arm of The Box has already started pulling in the column inches. Standing on the historically smut-loving site of The Raymond Revue Bar – Soho’s infamous old strip-joint on the fabulously-named Walker Court – Simon Hammerstein, lord of boundary-pushing cabaret’s newest offering promises all the dancing vaginas, amputee burlesque and large-scale pseudo-seedy leftfield entertainment your dirty little mind could possible crave.
Assuming it’s cool enough to get in, that is.
INFO
The Box, 11 Walkers Court, W1F 0ED.
The Wyld Bar, W Hotel, 10 Wardour Street, W1D 6QF.
QV, Ground Floor, Quo Vadis, 26-29 Dean Street, W1D 3LL.
Polpo Ciccheti, Basement, Polpo, 41 Beak Street, W1F 9SB.
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