Hamish Smith drops by one of the more talked about launches of 2026 - Flipdog - which is brought to us by operators Artem Skapenko and Alex Kostenyuk, alongside Igor Brovko.
Wallpapered in silver foil, the entrance to Flipdog is an intergalactic experience. However Houston, we do not have a problem.
Nothing major, anyway. This is a bar that gets a lot right – be it at its intimate, albeit rather reflective, ground-floor bar with its own personal bartender, or the much larger basement where the bar glows cobalt blue, diving into a ’90s-style bar aesthetic.
There’s a lot going on in the menu and so your appreciation of Flipdog depends a lot on whether you are a person for whom ‘interesting’ is a pejorative term. If the idea of a 1,200°C hot poker plunged into cocktails to caramelise sugars seems like a perfectly worthwhile endeavour, you’re very much in the right place.
Alas the loggerhead (aka flipdog) was decommissioned the day we stopped by. What wasn’t was the Half Pint, a sweet pseudo beer of Johnnie Walker, Nixta, sherry, lemon, Citra hops, CO₂ and oat-corn foam. Nor the Gallery Visit (sherry, cochi, pear, tobacco liqueur, suze and cedarwood) and Night Cab (Takamaka, Cochhi, Dubonnet, smoky houjicha and leather – both where esoteric and delectable intersect.
Along with some other madcap potions, I really rather enjoyed them. Flipdog is ‘interesting’ in the generous sense.
3.5/5
104-122 City Rd, London EC1V 2NR