Review: 69 Colebrooke Row, Islington, London

69 Colebrooke Row Interior

I can’t remember exactly how I came to know of this bar, but it’s name had floated around through my ‘research’ of nice places to drink, and there were quite a few good reviews of it. Though I was no closer to knowing what it’s called. . .surely it can’t just be called ’69 Colebrooke Row’.


I was wrong, my receipt calls the place ‘The Bar With No Name’ and even though I knew what road it was on, and what to look out for (a lantern with the number 69 on it). I still had stood outside on the street for two minutes, having to doubleback on myself before I realised that the place I had assumed was empty, had life. If you do go looking for this place, don’t expect it to jump out to you. It blends into the backstreets, which is exactly what it tries to achieve.

Review: The Vaults, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

Negroni & Martini - Vaults

The other evening, on the way home from dinner I was walking past The Vaults, spotted the bright red door, and thought a little Martini to finish the night off would be a good plan.

It may have been this moment, in retrospect where it all went wrong, but wrong in a good way as I’ll explain. The Vaults has been open for a while, but it had been a long time since my last visit where we had spotted that some of the staff were good at making cocktails.