Tabac

Tabac Bar is a short walk from Kentish Town station and feels miles away from just about anything, and we like that. It’s small with a couple of seats at the bar and tables along the opposite wall. When the weather is lovely they have some tables outside. It looks like the kind of old-school bar you’d find in some Paris alleyway in the 1950s, filled with beatniks and artists chainsmoking cigarettes in a red and orange-lit space. But for all our talk of writers and bygone Paris, it’s actually unpretentious. Relaxed with a neighbourhood feel, the kind of place where you want to spend several hours sipping cocktails and playing a game of cards. As for the cocktails, we rate the Holy Water with spiced rum, cognac, and chartreuse, Smokers Delight with Laphroaig, chocolate liqueur, and bitters, and, in general, the bar’s ability to make classics to T, and pretty much any other cocktail you might have a fancy for.

mood small with a couple of seats at the bar and tables along the opposite wall; tables outside; old-school bar you’d find in some Paris alleyway in the 1950s; red and orange-lit space; unpretentious; Relaxed with a neighbourhood feel

This might be the closest in form to one of Paris’ late-night hangouts... Tabac is exceptional, a place that is decorous and warm, somewhere for fuzzy nights to become fuzzier and for however many negronis the heart desires.

mood exceptional, a place that is decorous and warm; similar to a Paris late-night hangout

Not a new bar, but a tremendous one, and in it the green fairy is served a la Belle Epoque, in a glass urn to be shared and tickled adoringly by sugar. ... This is not just one of my bars of the year, it’s one of my favourite places to drink in London.

mood pocket-sized place with an illuminated red sign outside and a handful of wooden tables in a mismatched room within.