Eve Bar London review: clever, creative cocktails and Michelin-starred snacks

How close is Eve to a Michelin star? Oh, about ten feet: it’s located under Frog, Adam Handling’s justifiably acclaimed restaurant in Covent Garden. And, as you might expect with that connection, the drinks and food on offer feature similar levels of creativity and detail.

The drinks

“Try this! You can’t even taste the booze!” There are very few things I truly detest in the drinks world but that line is one of them. If I want to drink squash, I’ll drink squash. But I like booze and if I’m paying £15+ for a drink, I’d damn well better taste the alcohol it contains.

This is not a problem at Eve, where cocktails are creative, clever and very clearly feature booze – and smartly infused, inventive takes on it at that. These are not drinks you sip and ignore, these are drinks you sip, question, share, sip again, check the menu and sip some more. They are, as they should be, the star of this particular show – even if some of Frog’s signature dishes are available as bar snacks.

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The new(ish) menu is called “V” and, unsurprisingly, it’s split into five sections: Agave, Juniper, Grain, Malt & Corn and Sugar Cane. Each section features three cocktails utilising the relevant spirit, plus “complementary flavours”. A gleefully eccentric three-word description accompanies every drink title, making it easier to understand what’s actually on offer. For example, “Red Flags” – from the Juniper section – contains Boatyard Gin, Hendrick’s Gin, apple juice, miso and Champagne, and is described as “fresh – bubbly – croissant”. And, to my satisfaction, it did taste like boozy, buttery French pastry.

From the Malt & Corn section, “Pink is for Boys” – made from Yellowstone, Baldoria sweet Vermouth, anise, fennel and Campari – is described as “bitter – textured – harmony” and is, as the ingredients might suggest, somewhere in the Negroni zone only quirkier and, arguably, bolder.

Bringing up the rear is “Perfect Three Cherries”, an elaborate take on chef Handling’s favourite drink. This cocktail epitomises the level of in-house experimentation and original twists the team bring to the (preparation) table, which is located in the glass lab within the bar. Cherry stones have been lightly toasted to bring out their natural almond notes, then infused into sweet vermouth. Dry vermouth is flavoured with cherry blossom, while the drink is garnished with three cherries steeped in whiskey. This is the cocktail that will make me return to Eve sooner rather than later.

The snacks

If the drinks set Eve apart from many a rival bar, the food menu takes those differences to a whole new level. It had me at cheese doughnuts but, as good as they were, they actually come below the beef tartare (made using “waste” beef from the restaurant) and the egg, bacon and maitake mushrooms served in egg-shaped cups on a nest of hay (and, brilliantly, over dry ice like it’s the 80s).

And then there’s the chicken butter and sourdough. Oh sweet insert-deity-of-your-choice-here, there’s the chicken butter and sourdough. This is a brilliant little loaf that’s crusty and still warm, served with a dish of butter emulsified with chicken fat and topped with crispy chicken skin, and a small serving of exceptional chicken liver parfait. It is, somehow, more chicken-y than an actual chicken, a proper little flavour bomb that, at £10, may just be one of the best bargains and genuinely exceptional bar snacks the capital has to offer.

The atmosphere

I don’t know about you, but I have a certain expectation of how a cocktail bar should look and feel, likely based on movies and TV. The lighting should be dim. The bar should be long. The staff should be knowledgeable – and donning aprons. The drinks should make you feel like Don Draper. You know the drill.

This basement bar ticks all those boxes with its eccentric artwork, simple yet elegant glassware and charming, delightfully informed members of staff. All in all, Eve is – cough – Adam fine bar.

Eve; 34 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7HF; evebar.co.uk