Oriole
Oriole's rebuilt Covent Garden room has its first in-house bar lab, running a centrifuge and an ultrasonic homogeniser to clarify seasonal juices, and the clearest expression of it is a Mizuwari of 12-year-old Highland Park washed with chocolate miso, sake and cold-brewed hojicha (Hospitality and Leisure News; The Nudge).
Why go
The original Oriole opened under Smithfield Market in 2015 and reached 17th in the World's 50 Best Bars in 2018, then lost its home to redevelopment (Australian Bartender's 2018 list; The Nudge). It reopened on 28 August 2024 at 7-9 Slingsby Place, run as before by Speakeasy Entertainment, the Edmund Weil and Rosie Stimpson group behind Nightjar and Swift, and this time with a kitchen (Hospitality and Leisure News). Chef director Gustavo Giallonardo cooks from his Argentinian background across Nikkei, Argentine-Italian and regional Mexican lines, which lands as hamachi tiradito with kimchi aguachile and lamb rump with huacatay, carrot and a yeast sauce (hal.news; The Nudge). Bar director Samet Ali built the drinks list as a route around the globe, under the bar's own framing: These are the fruits of exile, empire and exploration
(Top 50 Cocktail Bars). The layout matters: a ground-floor Bamboo Bar around a Brazilian quartzite counter, and a basement of bamboo ceiling panels, murals and curio cases with live music five nights a week.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Mizuwari for the chocolate-miso wash, and the Acadia, the survivor from the Smithfield list that The Nudge describes as
somewhere between a whisky sour and a peanut butter & jelly sandwich
2. Upstairs, the Chincha Alta of pisco, absinthe and apple marigold cordial comes on draught. To eat, the hamachi tiradito with kimchi aguachile, then the coconut tres leches with fig leaf sauce and coconut sorbet. - Avoid: walking into the basement on a Friday without pricing the music. The cover runs GBP 4 on Tuesday to GBP 12 on Friday and Saturday per person, with GBP 6 more for the late set. The Bamboo Bar upstairs has no music and no cover (venue site).
What locals & experts say
- The Nudge, Neil Frame (Aug 2024): the new basement is
a plush basement space reminiscent of the original speakeasy, boasting walls lined with their signature collection of peculiar artefacts,
and the Smithfield roomwas forced to close on account of redevelopment.
His summary of the effect:It's like the British Museum was laced with booze and shaken into a glass.
2 - World's 50 Best Bars 2018: 17th, one place above Coupette, in the year Dandelyan took the top spot. That placing belongs to the Smithfield room.3
- Edmund Weil, director, Speakeasy Entertainment (2024):
We built the brand into a true destination in an obscure location in Smithfield Market, and now have the opportunity to bring the concept in its new form to a wider audience within The Yards, Covent Garden.
1 - Local rec: Jeff has it as reopened and on a best-new list. REAL.
Good to know
- Timing: closed Sunday and Monday. The Bamboo Bar runs Tuesday and Wednesday 3pm to 11pm and Thursday to Saturday midday to midnight; the basement restaurant runs Tuesday 7pm to 11pm, Wednesday and Thursday 6pm to midnight, and Friday and Saturday until 1am (venue site).
- Lunch: the terrace does an Al Fresco Lunch Thursday to Saturday, midday to 3pm, booked separately.
- Booking: three separate routes, one each for the terrace lunch, the Bamboo Bar and the downstairs room. Book downstairs if you want the music, and check which set you are in: 8pm to 8.45pm and 9.15pm to 10pm, with a late set on Friday and Saturday.
- Dietary: nothing published. No vegetarian, vegan, gluten or allergen statement appears on any venue page, and the kitchen runs raw fish, so ask when you book.
- Hygiene: no FSA record exists for 7-9 Slingsby Place.
- Getting there: St Martin's Courtyard, two minutes from Covent Garden station, next door to Dishoom and Lahpet.
Craft signals (cocktails: an encyclopedic list, plus a lab behind it)
No evolution: value is recorded here. The list is built as a reference volume arranged by continent with tasting notes attached, which is depth as a format: the point is breadth held permanently rather than a card that turns. Behind it is real production, clarified juices and syrups from an in-house lab, fat-washing with chocolate miso, cold-brewed hojicha as a mixer. Where this room does move is the kitchen, which has a new a la carte menu built on Latin American fusion cooking. Calling the drinks static would misread a bar whose whole argument is that the book is already large.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Reopened and on best new list" REAL.
Verdict
should-visit — A bar that installs a centrifuge and an ultrasonic homogeniser and then puts a chocolate-miso-washed Highland Park in a glass is doing the work, and Oriole has the record to back it: 17th in the world in 2018 from a basement in Smithfield Market. The Covent Garden rebuild adds a real kitchen under an Argentinian chef director, which most cocktail rooms never manage. It is a detour rather than a pilgrimage because the new room has no critical verdict on it yet, the cover charge stacks on top of GBP-heavy drinks, and the award belongs to the address it left.