First of all, 42 at Gymkhana is breathtakingly beautiful. The JKS restaurant group knows what it’s doing with aesthetics. It’s what you want to see when you walk into a cocktail lounge above a two Michelin-starred Indian restaurant. Words like “intimate” and “opulent” are par for the course.
I’d have been surprised to see anything other than soft furnishings and low lighting; long and sweeping drapes; great lamps, leopard-print ornaments and tinkling chandeliers. It’s a fabulous pastiche of high India, a place to sit and listen to late-night DJs before or after succulent lamb chops. I like the word succulent.
Also sumptuous; 42 is that too. What else? Ah, discreet. Yes, entirely fitting given the second floor bar is tucked away behind a little door; a cosy enclave, a bougie parlour, a place to sip Manhattans long into the night before traipsing off to Maison Estelle for margaritas on the roof or Isabel for just about everything in the basement.
As for the cocktails, do they matter much? I can’t imagine any regular really notices nor cares, particularly. Though they are good. Of course they are: JKS is as capable with drinks as it is with banquettes and lamb chops. Cocktails call for certain ingredients, riffing on classics with such fancies as chaat masala bitters, marigold, clarified coconut milk and a chutney made out of weaver ants. There’s £17 fried chicken and Punjabi samosas for those who wish to be less adventurous. Prices begin at £23 and climb all the way up to £250. That’s where the sazeracs and old fashioneds are, at least the ones that use rare Cognacs and the 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle.
Back in my wheelhouse and it’s all about the bhang lassi, made with rum, pineapple, lime and coconut, among other things. It didn’t bring about the same effect as that I experienced in Jaipur — a German couple scooped me into their tuk-tuk and fed me dhokla — but it was highly enjoyable all the same. Get one of those. And there’s another concoction called the jal jeera, where Macallan 12 is mixed with Somerset apple EDV and ginger ale. It’s a tremendous drink, one that strokes the brow and makes me want to go back to smoking Sobranies. I think I used up my last pack in Jaipur?
42 Albemarle Street, W1S; gymkhanalondon.com
Bar snacks
Donovan Bar
Brown’s Hotel, 33 Albemarle Street, W1, roccofortehotels.com
Devon seafood specialists Mitch and Ben Tonks — of the Seahorse and Rockfish restaurants — are running a three-month residency at the Donovan Bar in Mayfair, bringing snacks to be paired with cocktails. Sea bass crudo with ginger and pink pepper is matched with a bellini colada, a dish of spider crab, lemon and celery with a highball 24, and Venetian-style scampi with a negroni. Until September 14.
Feteasca Alba
Waitrose, waitrose.com
Ever tried Moldovan sparkling wine? Waitrose wine buyers have found an excellent example made with feteasca alba grapes, a Romanian-native variety used across Eastern Europe. The wine is light, full of flavours of ripe pears, and absolutely the bottle you want to bring to the barbecue this summer, not least because it’s only £9.25 a pop. In these sullen times where money is hard to find, there might be no better option to lighten the mood.
