Metro Life – Evening Standard 11-17 July 2003

Time for me to get back in my box and get on with the more pleasurable business of telling you about the lovely team of young people who enthusiastically welcome you to the new Shish bar and restaurant on the fashionable fringes of unfashionable Old Street.

The ground-floor restaurant (including a takeaway counter that will be ever so handy for passing Shoreditch dwellers in need of a posh kebab on their way home from the pub) is one of those soulless, clinically clean, ultra-modern no-smoking affairs that are becoming so commonplace these days. Happily, the basement bar couldn’t be more different. Here you’ll find a dark , high ceilinged room with a semi-circular bar reaching out into a spacious lounge with plenty of low-slung furniture set out in an arrangement of informal booths. A hyper – efficient air-conditioning system keeps the air cool and clean after the between-courses smokers from the restaurant return back upstairs to their tables.

You can buy a pint of Stella Artois, Guiness, or Hoegaarden, and there’s an interesting array of bottled beers on offer that include Pilsner Urquell and Asahi and three quality Belgian beers in the form of Duval, a monster beer with an alcohol content of 8.5 per cent, Affligen Blonde and the palate-cleansing Frulli strawberry beer. Michelob and Budweiser are also on hand for those with a pedestrian palate.

Cocktails are economically priced and although by and large the spirits offering lacks the pizzazz of a decent range of premium-quality products, they are well made, colourfully presented and delivered to your table by an effortlessly enthusiastic team of waiting staff. I recommend the Apple Mojito with Havana Club rum, and the Ginger Tom, a refreshing mix of gin shaken with fresh ginger, lime juice and soda water.

An abridged menu from the restaurant is available in the bar, and we made a small feast of a mezze plate for two and added a plate of chicken, beef and lamb kofta wraps, plus a plate of duck and crisp vegetables wrapped in rice paper and served with a black-bean sauce.

The bill for a satisfactory evening for two came in at just over £50, plus a discretionary 10 per cent service charge. The credit card slip invited a further tip. But the management tell me that 100 per cent of all gratuities are shared amongst the staff – a true rarity in London these days.