Le Salon Bar

Joël Robuchon’s L’Atelier restaurant & pleasuredome also boasts a bar with a sparrow-sized roof terrace (a rare thing in Covent Garden). Treat it as a handy standby for cocktails & some summer ‘indulgence’ (aka afternoon tea served with ladylike savouries & pastries). Indoors, a deco-style lounge done out in lacquered reds serves comme il faut cocktails presented with Robuchon’s signature handwriting: fabuleux flourishes or over-fussy furbelows, depending on your opinion of Parisian styling. Green tea & lemongrass gin martini is accompanied by a herbal sorbet, while Granny Smith sour arrives with a palate-cleansing Moscato d’Asti jelly – both at £14. Alternatively, try ‘something slightly different’: le fumé, for example, a smokin’ mix of Polish Potocki vodka, Lagavulin whisky & lapsang souchong syrup with mango & chilli daiquiri.