NIGHTLIFE
Originally published on Friday, 18 April 2008
Hallelujah! It's Raining Bars
Bar openings are rather like taxis and love interests. You wait for absolutely ages with nothing on the horizon until, presuming the cause lost, the heavens suddenly open and it starts pouring with the bloody things. Why, take today for example. Not one, but two establishments of the alcoholic persuasion are opening their intoxicating portals.
After several months lingering on the boundaries of everyone's radars, Edgware Road finally gets the official launch of the pleasantly infernal Mephisto to brighten its evenings.
At the other end of several spectra, meanwhile, St. Pancras now has The Betjeman Arms, in honour of the former Poet Laureate John Betjeman, who saved the station from extinction in the '60s. On the one hand, The Betjeman is a welcome addition to the area, with its new-trad ciders and steam bitters, hot pots and salt beef sandwiches. And on the other, it is also an attempt to highlight a glorious 140 year heritage. Minus the crack whores, I'm guessing.
But I must say: when I finally pass away, a long-lived and famed author, I'm not personally convinced about getting a glorified pub in a train station named after me. Unless I can get the train station as well. And maybe the city. In fact, I've always thought 'The Chinn Isles' had a good ring to it.
Mephisto, 254 Edgware Road, W2
The Betjeman Arms, Unit 53 St Pancras St, NW1