Star At Night, W1F 8FR
- 020 7494 2488
- 22 Great Chapel Street, W1F 9FR (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
- thestaratnight.com
- Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm (Cafe) Tue-Sat: 6pm-11pm (Bar)
A small bar in Soho, currently home to the Soho Coffee House during the day, and the London Gin Club after 6pm.
It's table service only, and booking is recommended for the London Gin Club. Kat and 3 friends visited on a Friday evening in November 2014, and at 6.30pm it was almost full, with small tables packed into the available space. Music was playing quietly, not loudly enough to interrupt conversation.
We had booked for a 4-person gin tasting menu (worth £50) as one of us had a voucher for it, but there is also a huge and baffling gin 'a la carte' menu to choose from, including gin cocktails and rum-barrel-aged gins. A large measure of Citadelle Reserve (£8.50) arrived with a separate bottle of Fever Tree tonic and an orange peel garnish. There were no non-gin drinks listed, but the staff were quite happy to offer an alternative of white wine for one of our party who wasn't feeling so gin-adventurous after all.
There are several different tasting menu options (including an all-sloe menu!): our 'flavour spectrum' menu consisted of 7 gins and 1 gin liqueur, which arrived in a rack of little medicine bottles, each containing a generous measure. Each gin also had its own huge glass (containing a massive chunk of ice, to keep everything cool for a good hour), which we shared between us. The staff recommended we try each one 'on the rocks' first, then try them again topped up with Fever Tree tonic and the accompanying garnish (e.g. for the 'savoury' flavoured gin the garnish was a black olive and a sprig of thyme, which worked very well). Kat's favourite was the liqueur - very smooth and almost creamy.
Kat's verdict: I really enjoyed our tasting flight and would definitely recommend it if you're a gin lover. The low lighting and small tables made for an enjoyably civilised - yet decadent - Soho drinking den atmosphere.
Accessibility: toilets are down a spiral staircase with a handrail. I didn't see an accessible toilet on the ground floor, but it was quite dark so I may have missed it.