We got the exclusive scoop on The Escapologist, a party bar opening in Covent Garden later this month.
The latest enterprise from the team behind Adventure Bars (in Clapham Junction, Clapham High Street and Covent Garden) will open in Seven Dials at the end of March, on the former site of the legendary Detroit Bar.
The Escapologist takes its name from a scandalous 19th-century baron who escaped from the gallows to plan ‘the creeping takeover of the political elite’ (and we felt rebellious just parking on a double yellow line). The new bar is billed as a modern-day Victorian gentleman’s club combined with a Masonic secret society. Its wacky interiors will boast a banquet area, an illusion tunnel and a dance floor, providing a suitably surreal backdrop to some killer cocktails.
Expect contemporary twists on the classics, with a list featuring the likes of Chocolate Orange Negroni and a Rum and Maple Old Fashioned, soaked up by plenty of wood-fired pizza. The whole set-up should pave the way for continued mischief-making in Covent Garden – no doubt the wayward baron would approve.
Adventure’s directors, Tom Kidd, Kieron Botting, Tobias Jackson and Bryan Lloyd, also aim to move their jerk barbecue and rum shack, Dub Jam (recently closed in Covent Garden), to a ‘secret location’ soon, and hope to acquire yet another London venue by the end of the year – watch this space.
This article was published 8 March 2016