The Thin White Duke
Under the bar there are two members' recording studios, capped at sixty members between them, one with a stained-glass mural of Bowie and a vocal booth lined floor to ceiling in Christian Lacroix (Decoded, 2022).
Why go
Set designer Sasha Almonte and musician Giovanni Almonte opened this in March 2022, in the space Soho Radio used to occupy on Great Windmill Street (The Nudge, 2022). The drinks are by Dav Eames, who came off Marcus Wareing's Gilbert Scott. The lists run to a concept, not a season. The first ran ten cocktails, each named for a city Bowie played on the Isolar tours of 1976 and 1978, so Inglewood arrived on popcorn-infused bourbon and Glasgow came out smoky. The current twelve are called The Kansai Yamamoto List, after the designer who cut Bowie's Ziggy costumes, and the venue's own description of them is Maximalist, beautiful, fun, expressive and strong.
Bartender Aniket Pawar curates the B-Corp spirits. Downstairs is the studio: two control rooms, a shared overdub room, in-house engineers, and The Kyoto Room, built out of 19th-century Japonisme.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Gin & Milk. It is Pink Pepper gin, almond milk and white tea syrup, and Country & Town House called it
an indulgent and well-balanced cocktail which you might not have
met anywhere else. The name comes from the Bowie period when he was reportedly living on peppers and milk. After that, the Bel-Air Boulevardier, which The Nudge records asAntica Formula, absinthe, and whisky housed together in a Negroni-like drink.
- Avoid: ordering off any review you have read. The kitchen partner has changed three times, from cicchetti at the opening to Dominican small plates and gelato in 2023 to dim sum by MAI now, so the dishes the write-ups name are gone. Also do not turn up before 5pm from Monday to Thursday.
What locals & experts say
- Giovanni Almonte, co-founder, in Decoded (2022): on why Bowie,
David Bowie was a lover of culture, made a home of the world, made a life that was far from oppressed or oppressive and we celebrate these values too.
His co-founder Sasha Almonte put the premise more plainly:I am a set designer and Giovanni is a musician. We have dedicated our lives to art, beauty and community.
1 - Tessa Dunthorne, Country & Town House (2023): the only published assessment of a drink here. The Gin & Milk is
an indulgent and well-balanced cocktail,
in a room of exposed plaster and industrial piping with agreat playlist
and the ambiencewell-set.
Cocktails were GBP 13 to 14 at that visit.3 - Jason Allen, The Nudge (2022): credits the list to Dav Eames,
the highly talented former mixologist-in-chief for Marcus Wareing,
and records the opening builds.2 - On awards: none. The UK's Top 50 Cocktail Bars lists for 2024 and 2025 were checked and this bar is on neither. The 2025 list was topped by Satan's Whiskers.5
- Local rec: from Jeff's own list, and one of his named favorites, with a do-not-miss on it (his note below). No published source rates it that highly, so treat his line as his.
Good to know
- Timing: 5pm to 11.30pm Monday to Thursday, 4pm to midnight Friday, 1pm to midnight Saturday, 4pm to 10.30pm Sunday. Saturday afternoon is the only daytime option.
- Booking: take a table online. The room is small.
- Downstairs: the studios run on membership, capped at 60, with in-house engineers. That is a separate business from the bar and not something you can wander into.
- Coffee: from Girls Who Grind, an all-female roastery in Wiltshire.
- Dietary: nothing is published, and the food partner has rotated three times, so ask at the bar rather than relying on an older menu.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 3, generally satisfactory, Westminster, inspected 7 May 2024. All three components, food handling, structure and confidence in management, scored 10. That inspection is more than two years old6.
Craft signals (a rotating food partner over a fixed bar)
Two signals, and the honest one first. The food partner has rotated three times, from cicchetti to Bocachica to Bimonte to MAI dim sum, which is why every published review of this room names a different menu and why nothing from an older card can be carried forward. That is a residency programme in practice whether or not the bar calls it one. The drinks are the constant: cocktails, sake and a curated wine list in a Soho room that also holds recording studios. Programme describes the kitchen; the bill is for the drinks and the room.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "One of my favorite cocktail bars. Don't miss it." REAL.
Verdict
should-visit — The building is the reason. Upstairs is a cocktail bar, downstairs is a members' recording studio capped at 60 people, with two control rooms, a stained-glass Bowie mural in one and 19th-century Japonisme in the other, and a vocal booth lined floor to ceiling in Christian Lacroix. Dav Eames came off Marcus Wareing's Gilbert Scott and writes conceptual lists: the original ten drinks were each named for a city Bowie played on the Isolar tours, and the current twelve are The Kansai Yamamoto List. The Gin & Milk, Pink Pepper gin with almond milk and white tea syrup, is a real drink built on a grim biographical joke. It stops short of must-visit because no drinks-trade source has ever assessed it, it is on no Top 50 list, and the last hygiene inspection returned a 3.