Staying Power - The Bars And Restaurants That Stand The Test Of Time

Here today, gone tomorrow, bars have a status for short-term success. But several have the capacity to drive the changing times and continue the top of the game.

A decade before, I was sitting in The Groucho Club one late summer's evening discussing with a now well-known haute couture designer, the newest trend of consuming lifestyle which was enveloping the money, arguing that London really had never been so exciting. Until the period, beverages were quite definitely a second section of the general experience - wine was only white or red, beer got just in a pint glass and vodka was whatsoever paint-stripper the barman chose to pour. However, in the nineties, we were on the cusp of a drinking movement. New-world wines were creating the Chardonnay and Shiraz as prevalent since the Bordeaux, while new conceptual beverages like Red Bull were really banging up the marketplace, broadening people's consuming landscape and difficult people to consider consuming as more of a lifestyle. Gradually, the thing that was behind the bar was taking over the emphasis of the night. Individuals were whispering rumours of evening bars which were open into the tiny hours, where glamourous glitterati rubbed hips with the international jet-set around Manhattans and Martinis. They, alongside The Groucho, were the areas everyone else wanted to be seen and their popularity appeared untouchable to all or any but the absolute most cynical. atlas bar

Of course, everything has a lifetime, we cynically decided: style is lifeless in time, and a fashionable bar - you wouldn't wish to bet the home about it would you? We both figured styles only can not last and these bars, which today were the topic of snaking queues, would quickly change to yesterday's information as would the beverages which were being quaffed within. Of course, generally, we weren't far wrong. Mondo, Saint, Titanic, Riki Tik... all have fallen by the wayside having after been star favourites of their day. Many more have made from special A-list superiority to godawful tourist tat. The Gin Sling turned the Beach Breeze turned the Bramble turned the Vanilla Mojito...

But it's not all doom and gloom. Today, yet another a decade ergo, I'm back the exact same leather couch of the exact same Groucho, and getting from the selection a Red Bull, a drink whose ability to transcend fads and tendencies appears to symbolise the aspirations of nightlife culture. It has history and history and has obtained very nearly classic appeal. Trendy performs for a while, but every owner, manager and promoter hopes and works for something eventually - and that is usually to be the next classic. Since the classics, while small in quantity, exist on an ordinary far superior to fashion. Dotted between the expansive neighbourhood of one-off wonders that populate the bar world, several classics genuinely have stood the test of time, riding the cyclical waves to attain immortal credibility. The Groucho is one particular classic classics. Through the years it has long been at the very top of its game, its customers'number comprising the exact same titles that populate the pages of the star press alongside the effective and powerful on the planet of media.

Today, octogenarian founder customers stay easily alongside small achievers and its long-term potential would appear to emerge stone. The embassy is yet another long-time champion - or maybe more to the stage, its ever-present Stone'n'Roll proprietor, Level Larger, who went the first Embassy twenty years before with similar success. This newest incarnation of among London's many famous clubs, now with an excellent food cafe that matters one of the capital's best, and glitzy nightclub in the attic, is just an uncommon constant in the oscillating world of the fashionable. Another experience that has long been related to bar and membership supremacy is John Panayiotou who went original star hot-spot, Browns for ten years before moving on in its hay-day. His last several years at the helm of the Wellington Club in Knightsbridge have experienced the age-old customers'membership rise to however new heights. But it's not merely customers clubs that could challenge through the ages unscathed. Music-led settings such as for example Medicine Bar in Islington, Bar Rumba, The Mix, Bar Plastic and The Conclusion have all shown their mettle, while the kind of Hanover Great, The Garden Club and Iceni have collapsed into the annuls of cool history.

Therefore, what is it that models the one-hit-wonders independent of the immortals? Why is a classic? Three features seem to push through the veins of all long-term winners.

"Quality, choice and adaptability," says Cas, The Groucho's pre-eminent bar manager, as he deftly shakes up cocktails from behind the bar. "You have to provide a quality experience in the beverages, the audio, the meals and the people. You have to provide customers with what they need and you have to conform to the times." Slightly underlining the purpose, my Red Bull quietly happens at the desk by itself dish, dressed with an individual, perfectly flattened napkin.

Is May staying power really be so simple to attain? With twenty years of achievement behind The Groucho, the membership is quite a power on the subject, but it absolutely was Darwin who figured "the fittest gain out at the expense of their rivals since they succeed in adapting with their environment." Looks quite familiar if you ask me and, let us experience it, you can not fight with Darwin.

HERE TO STAY

Our selection of bars that we think will still be doing it in ten years time...

MAYFAIR: Embassy

An all-round club for the all-round socialite, Embassy offers food on a par with Michelin starred restaurants, drinks that are as good as any great cocktail bar, a basement club and a guest list that could double as a who's who of London.

COVENT GARDEN: The End & AKA

One of the capital's most respected dance music venues, with Mr C behind its success. Music is always ahead of its time and drinks are a world away from most dance music venues.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE: Wellington Club

With over 100 years of history, The Wellington has been reborn as an exclusive hangout for the city's hippest. The lounge bar and club rolled into one and popular with the paps and the press alike.

WEST: Woody's

On the banks of London's longest canal, Woody's has become accepted as the members' bar for the music industry. Three floors of food drink and dance with a collection of the best music and cocktail mixologists in the country.

ISLINGTON: Medicine Bar

It was the bar that put Islington on the 'credible' map. One of the original DJ bars that has been made a home to the clubbing community of the 1990s.

CAMDEN: Bar Vinyl

Reputedly the first DJ bar in London, Bar Vinyl combines a record shop with the only bar in Camden really worth it's salt. The bar is minuscule, but the offering is enormous and the future is vast.

SHOREDITCH: Home

One of the originators of the Shoreditch movement, Homemade its mark before all of the others and continues to hold its own. It has moved from a scraggly basement bar to a slick, but the funky cocktail bar and restaurant and continues to define the times.

SOHO: The Groucho

A favourite media hangout, The Groucho is like a party in your own front room with the kind of people that anybody would eat their own right arm to have turned up at their party. Now with a more modern bar on the first floor to complement the leather and wood ground floor classic, it is a members' bar that suits all and bound to see in another twenty-year term.

FITZROVIA: Social

A collaboration between bar gurus The Breakfast Group and music gurus, Heavenly Social, this backstreet concrete bunker of a bar offers some of the best DJ-led and live music about. Now with sister venues in Islington and Nottingham, Social is destined for a big future.

Jeremy Mascarenhas has been editorial director of the seminal London Bar Guide magazine [http://www.londonbarguide.com] for 10 years. He is also global editor of The World Bar Guide, an online guide to the best bars in the world http://www.worldbarguide.com, publisher of The Big Directory (a bar industry bible) and a freelance drinks marketing consultant. He has worked with most of the leading drinks groups including Red Bull, Moët Hennessy, Diageo, Brown Foreman, Budweiser, Asahi, Tiger Beer and Grand Marnier. Through his publishing company Scene It, as well as the London Bar Guide, he has published guides to Sherry, UK nightlife, cocktails, Japanese restaurants, the much-lauded London Restaurant Guide and much more besides