We keep waiting for its imminent demise, but Hoxton Square - like, seemingly, Bruce Willis and mullets - will never die.

Upper Street seemed to be gaining the upper hand for a while, but the Square still reins as the epicentre of the quintessential Shoreditch twat. A place for the achingly cool to get alarmingly hammered.

The fine-dining Hoxton Apprentice never really blossomed, and even Zigfrid's been getting a little stale, and then the overly-pretentious Cube & Star on the grounds of the old Electricity Showrooms quietly slipped away into oblivion earlier this year. From its still-warm ashes, however, the Hoxton Square Bar boys have been busily erecting a new masterpiece.

Reclaiming its rightful title and restoring the exterior to its '20s heyday (when it really was an electricity showroom) Electricity Showroom returns. Upstairs is all quirky Victoriana: high, friezed ceilings, a tongue-in-cheek stained glass window and a circular bar. Food is pretension-free English fare, with Pieminister pies, Sunday roasts, fish'n'chips, all served with cold and plentiful beers. Wander downstairs, meanwhile, and they've created an opium den of pseudo-Oriental wallpaper and lush, padded banquette seating set around - wait for it - an under-lit, Daft Punk-esque dance floor.