Experimental Cocktail Club

The Experimental Cocktail Club has annoyed many a potential customer with its hard-to-find, no-number door and its discriminating, supercilious doormen. But the former is all part of its secret, speakeasy appeal; and despite the latter, we have managed to slip through the net twice. Last night my fiancee was wearing a Barbour jacket which I suspect the doorman (not noticing the authentic dog hair and Dorset mud) thought was incredibly Shoreditch, so he let us in despite becoming distinctly frosty as we faffed at the door waiting for our friend. Once inside though, the staff are are all extremely friendly from the super smiley maitress d' who welcomes you to the charming barmen. The decor is quite “cool” in a slightly self-consciously hip way (velvet green pouffes, glass low tables, exposed brickwork etc) and, no surprises, the clientele matches this (yes, lots of post-modernist, ironic, wax jacket wearing types). The atmosphere buzzes, thanks in part to the squeezy seating and heightened no doubt by the collective palpable relief of being let in. But forget all this, ultimately it's all about the drinks here and ECC delivers on the promise of its name. The cocktail menu is quirky, appealing and truly experimental. I was persuaded that I really should try egg white in a drink so had an amazing gin-based/elderflower concoction that had a frothy top and a hidden spicy kick, followed by a furry-teeth inducing gorgeous little vodka/berry malarkey which came in an old-fashioned pharmacy bottle complete with “magic potion” label. This is quite simply the best place for a cocktail in London. So, dress dandy, try your hand at walking in off the street, and if it doesn't happen, don't let it ruin your night: you can always try another evening and until then there's the London Cocktail Club around the corner…

This is my type of place – hard to find, marked only by a beret wearing doorman. Feels nice to be on the guest list and no charge to get in before 11pm. Delicious cocktails brought to your table, nice tunes, dark and intimate. Loved it.

Overrated doesn't begin to cover this.
Sometimes arrogance can kill you – suspect this might be the case here.

I really wanted to love this place. After getting a taste for “speak-easy” cocktail bars from recent visits to New York and LA, I was looking forward to my first visit to the ECC. And it was all going so well. We sailed past the doorman, who scrubbed Helen's name of his list (my name isn't Helen so not too sure what that was all about), went upstairs and ordered our slightly unusual but expertly made cocktails. The bar was nice, but somehow seemed a little too try hard, and if you looked closely was a tad shabby. But I was in great company, had a delicious drink, so who cares? But I did care that after 40min, one of the waitresses came over and said she was ever so sorry (not very convincingly) but we had to vacate our table for a couple who had a reservation. Now maybe that's not too bad, but what I really didn't like was that although we were mid cocktail and conversation she expected us to jump up instantly. She “kindly” offered that we could stand at the bar (as if we should be grateful we weren't being kicked out!), and when I asked to settle our tab she insisted we should have been told this would happen (we weren't, in fact her colleague had offered us the table), and further we had to stand up before she took my payment. Frankly it just was really bad service from someone who clearly was looking down her nose at us (in that posh shop assistant way). Such a shame. Maybe you'll go and will be lucky and not bump into the waitress with attitude (although from the reviews it seems this sadly might be a common experience). But this bar just isn't up to expectations and doesn't ooze cool like it's American cousins (I would highly recommend Bar Marmont in LA or the amazing for employees only in NYC), so I'll be avoiding in future.

It was a lot worse than I red from the reviews! They charged us £5 to get in at 11:00 on saturday which already sounds like a cheap Soho back street late bar trying to cash in! Drinks were awrful and uninteresting and the door man kept us in the queue for 10 min saying it was full and when we got in it was half empty! Don't bother with this is place. There are a lot better cocktail bars in London.

Absolutely appalling service and attitude. I can confirm much of what some of the other reviewers have written. Do not even bother, you will be wasting your time.

It's never a good start when your first experience of a place is a rude doorman and sadly it set the tone for the whole place.

Our service was slow and our waiter rude. Cocktails are a mixed bunch, some were very good some were very bad. At one point our waiter mixed up our drinks and then when we asked him to clarify what they were he informed us it was blantantly obvious (it really wasn't – it's an experimental cocktail club!) and then said it was our fault he had made the mistake!?

Finally managed to pay and get out of there after repeated attempts had been ignored.

Won't be going back.

Love it Love it Love it Loooove it!!!

I just saw the reviews of this bar and I totally disagree with them. Please dont listen to this.

I regret that people might had bad experience but how can you write “I have never been treated in such a way” ?
How can someone even rate the drinks and atmosphere when you did not even enter the bar?

Please stay fair! This bar is just amazing, cool people, music … just good vibes everywhere.

The staff is so friendly and professional. They know everything about cocktails and can advice you something special. Its a pleasure to watch on the bar how they are mixing. (Never had a better Whisky Smash)

Yes it is true it is quickly crowded and you may end up having problems getting in but that is something you can not be angry about.

I have been there last weekend and I will go again as soon as possible.

The Cocktails are just YUMMY!
I can strongly recommend it…cheers!

WAY TOO MUCH ATTITUDE – and that's just the reservation and door staff…

Let me just preface this by saying that never have I ever felt so enraged with an establishment that I have bothered to write a review online to signal out such poor service. Well done ECC for being the first.
I phoned ECC on a Friday to make a booking for 2 people that evening at 8pm. The staff member of the phone told that “I didn't need to make a booking and that entry at 8pm wouldn't be a problem”.

We arrived at the bar at 8.10pm and asked the door girl if we could enter. The door girl responded with a short and sharp – NO. Words can’t communicate the look and tone with which the denial was given. There was no attempt at trying to explain why we couldn’t enter or that they were sorry entry was being denied. After a moment of being totally thrown off by the harsh treatment my partner explained that we had called earlier during the day to reserve a table at 8pm that evening but we were specifically told that no reservation was required and that entry at that time of evening would not pose a problem. Based on this information we had confidently decided to venture across town to try out the new bar.

This is when the attitude was amped up and ECC broke out the absurd…

The door girl then told us that “even if we had a reservation we would have been turned away because the bar was filled to capacity earlier in the evening and that THEY WERE TURNING AWAY BOOKINGS”. At this point I asked the door girl to clarify what she had just said – that if a reservation had been made, ECC doesn’t necessarily honour it. The door girl replied with another short and sharp: “Tonight we have turned away bookings”. No apology was given for having messed us around with their shoddy advice or an opportunity to make it up to us on another occasion. It was just all so inhumane and stuck up.

Feeling like we had been stiffed by ECC I phoned them the following week to discuss the situation with the manager – the person I spoke with said they often get full quite early on Friday evenings and that they never know what time they are going to reach capacity. I said I understood that they might not know when they are going to reach capacity, but that it was wholly misleading to so confidently tell me that I should not bother booking because I would have no problem entering at 8pm. From here we just went round and round in circles without ECC ever acknowledging that the information they provided was misleading.

To cap off the appalling behaviour the man on the phone then speculated that the reason we were turned away because we might not have “looked right”. He then tried to correct his poor English by saying we weren’t dressed appropriately. I was just completely over ECC by then and couldn’t be bothered to discuss the matter any further.

Such a shame that this place is managed so poorly – I was looking forward to a good cocktail…

A copy of an email I just sent to the management of this venue…

I want to express to you how appalled I am at the reception I got at the ECC last night in London. It was the most disgraceful scenario I have ever encountered at any venue in London.

Although I had a reservation I was told that the venue was full and that I could not go in.
The door staff at first denied that I had a reservation, until I pointed out my name on the list.
They then suggested that I was late (I was not, they had kept me waiting outside by refusing entry).
They informed me that my table had been given to other people.
When I asked to speak to the manager I was told that he refused to speak to me because he was too busy.
No one apologised, no one went to investigate what could be done, no one offered any explanation.

First, how is it that my reservation was confirmed, my name placed on the list but the table was not kept?
What is the point in having a reservation system if your staff just ignore it? You just waste people's time.
Second, it is unbelievable that the manager would not even speak to me to explain. I was treated as an unwanted visitor, and rudely turned away at the door.

I have never been treated in such a way, and I want to inform you that your business is a disgrace.

This should be a lovely little bar but it was totally ruined for me and my friends last night by the horrendously stuck-up door staff.

There were around 10 of us there for our friends birthday, drinking lovely Chinese themed cocktails and enjoying the retro pop when a friend of our arrived at the door downstairs and was refused entry by the bar staff.

They came up with excuse after excuse as to why they couldn't let her it “we are full to capacity” – there are 2 free seats next to us, it's not even busy in there, I said “your booking was for 8pm and you all have to be here in the hour” – you never said anything of the kind when we made the booking, I said. The stand off continued. They didn't let our friend in. I think, in the end, they didn't like the way she looked or the way she dressed. You know, one of those arbitrary yet scary attitudes that in large scale lead to genocide. The groups evening was ruined. We finished our drinks and left. Thanks for that, Experimental Cocktail club – putting the mental into experimental.

I would not recommend this bar to anyone.

Sadly a birthday outing was ruined by our experience at ECC. We booked an area (with some difficulty) for 8pm. We started ordering £10 cocktails and relaxed a little, one guest was delayed and when they (a girl, ALONE) arrived, they were told that they had missed the 1 hour window of arrival time and that they (ECC) were not obligated to let them in, inside we had space for this guest in our reserved area. They dug their heels in and after 15minutes they then told us that our guest had been rude and they would NEVER be allowed in, we left sharpish, shocking attitude and total trash, the place was not at capacity, was a real shame. Be very warned. The website even states they allow 50% of clientele as walk ins!!!