Hamish Smith is at Gambit Bar at The Newman - London's latest big budget launch.
London may not be at the peak of its powers, but there is no other city in the world for which the launch of a high-end hotel bar is so utterly routine.
Blink and you could have missed the opening of The Newman and its flagship Gambit Bar, which was at time of writing - the city's latest greatest destination, but almost certainly won't be by the time you come to read this. One wonders if there are now more luxury destinations than people to visit them.
It's starting to feel a little as if London has two hospitality classes: struggling independents and big hospitality. In Gambit Bar, there can be no better exemplar of the latter. The whole venture shouts investment group and a near-bottomless budget.
Certainly no expense was spared on the street-side entrance, which funnels you down a splendid staircase into a basement room of neo-Art Deco décor. There's a coffered ceiling divided by abstract geometry. A burr veneer frontage that runs the length of a never-ending bar which has a pre-patina copper top as a stage for the bartenders' creations. Surrounding it are booths and poser tables allowing for 60 covers, which you could probably double or treble, if the socially-distanced lounge-bar feel wasn't the objective.
No high-end bar launches these days without a good narrative underpinning it and Gambit Bar has read the script here too, picking through the pages of local history. It's supposedly inspired by Percy Wyndham Lewis, founder of the 1920s avant garde Vorticist movement, a pre-cursor to Art Deco. Then bohemian, one wonders what old Percy would think of moneyed Fitzrovia now.
Interrupting our musings came Original Set (Ketel One, lychee, passion fruit, clarified brioche milk, Prosecco) which was tropical-light but a quaffable opening gambit. Alongside it was Excitement & Fate (Flor de Caña white rum, clarified pineapple juice, homemade cherry, shiso, lime) which was similarly easy drinking but flat, lacking some thwack.
A food interlude - meatball flatbread and croquettes were pricy but tasty - thereafter two more from the 10-strong cocktail list. A coupette by the name of Angels & Demons (butter-infused Ocho blanco tequila, Opius Albedo, Campari, blood orange and almond / pictured above) saw a spherical ice ball bobbing slightly aimlessly, not immersed enough to offer much-needed dilution. Which couldn't be said for the highball Horse's Neck 2.0 (Courvoisier VSOP, double apple shrub, orange bitter, ginger ale) - crisp, spicy and lifting. All the drinks are on the spectrum of fine - if a little benign - drinks making.
So is Gambit Bar actually any good? The answer is: it depends. In just about any city in the world, this would be one of the best hotel bars in town. In London, in five-star hotel land, bars stand out for being two things: exceptionally good or exceptionally bad and Gambit is neither. You could not point to a single thing - service, drinks, décor, music - and find fault. All at once it is flawless and featureless - luxury in its most curated but inert form.
49 Newman Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 3DZ
SCORE: 3.5/5 STARS