New neighbourhood lounge, Silk Stockings, should be a seamless fit with rapidly gentrifying Dalston Lane. The set-up is similar to Satan’s Whiskers, its hit Bethnal Green sibling. Killer cocktails are dispensed in a vaguely retro, slightly Frenchified room decorated with tongue-in-cheek taxidermy. Bag a booth, or a stool at the smart bar, for a selection of spot-on classics. Stirs include Vieux Carré, and the Harvard (brandy, orange bitters and sweet vermouth) plus its dry-sherry sibling, the Adonis; shakes cover the Tequila-based Silk Stockings – creamy, chocolatey, and sheer 10-denier joy. Pick at charcuterie and cheese boards as you take up The Quill, an absinthe-enhanced Negroni first popularised by legendary New York-based Scottish bartender Harry MacElhone almost a century ago. Airmail is a rum and lime sparkler from 1940s USA; this version would be first-class, were it charged with Champagne rather than the Prosecco advertised on Silk Stockings’ otherwise flawless list.