Wednesday 1 September 2010

The Queen of Hoxton, Shoreditch


For those of you who don’t know London, there is a small but clearly-defined border between the suit-wearing financial district that is the City, and the style-leading triumvirate of all things cool - Shoreditch, Hoxton and Clerkenwell.

In bar world, this means a transition from wine bar chain heavyweights, such as Corney and Barrow and Jamie’s, to a land of independent boozers and cocktail bars where suits are not allowed.
Standing on the cusp of both worlds is The Queen of Hoxton, voted by no less a blog then my own as Bar of the Year in 2009. Yet as of last year, this didn’t seem to translate into punters. In other words, it was quiet. Not dead, but never at capacity. What a difference a year makes, and I can now say that a combination of well-promoted DJs and the decision to make the previously 'party only' roof terrace available to all patrons has seen it shift to a standing-room-only/queue around the block sort of place.
So what’s the appeal? Well for a start, it has all the elements you associate with East End cool - art installations, photographic installations, fringe theatre and screenings. Stylistically, its urban industrial décor sits alongside a games room complete with table-football and pinball machines, while a cinema advertising board takes guard of the bar. The drinks are nothing extraordinary - your now-traditional offering of classic cocktails, American lagers (including Mexican and Argentinean) and New World wines. What we saw of the food was of the bar snack/canapé variety. But what marks the Queen as somewhere special is the combination of music - from electronic dance to '50s Americana - and the cool creatives that make its crowd everything you would expect from London’s fashion set. That is, young, beautiful, and very stylish.
The icing on this trend-defining cake is the roof terrace, which is as large as the one at nearby Shoreditch House, but without the pool and self-aware crowd. The English garden party design, with large bean bags, picnic tables and artificial 'grass', turns the place into a year round oasis of fun. Of course, being Shoreditch, there are some glitches. Why nobody has seen fit to place toilets on the roof terrace rather than forcing punters to schlep down not four, but five flights of stairs to the loo is an oversight (and a tad hazardous after a few drinks). Also, the roof terrace bar only offers three drinks - Becks lager, cider, and a version of a mojito. Not a glass of wine in sight. However, people who criticise the place for these failings are being picky, and dare I say it, a tad 'City'.
The Queen has plenty of people willing to forgo these hardships to indulge in its special mix of hedonism, so you might want to start queuing early.

No comments:

Post a Comment