The East Room

My sister, the Yogababe, decided to join a private members-only club. So she chose the East Room in Shoreditch, a newly opened, buzzy little bar / restaurant that is linked to 2 other venues in London (Milk and Honey and the Player), another in New York and another in Chamonix. Since the launch of the East Room, the club has decided to open membership once again, with a marketing drive aimed at ladies. From this promotion, Yogababe managed to snaffle membership at a very decent price indeed. To celebrate, she asked the Pretty Lady and myself along to have a look.

The place itself is actually quite hard to find. As befits a private club, there is no signage. The only indication is a discreet little strip above the buzzer in the doorway. Get past that, go up a flight of stairs, and the door opens into a maroon carpeted room with an interesting whisky collection in a cupboard on the right. Go forward past some booths, and the room widens to reveal wooden tables, leather sofas, comfy leather chairs and a bar on the left. The whole impression is of an '80s lounge, especially when the room is dimly lit.

The East Room
2a Tabernacle Street
London EC2A 4LU
07000 THSTRM

The food menu is short. One can either choose the salad bar ("DIY Dining" on the menu), which serves several salads along with a large pan of prawns and a slab of roast beef, or go for the a'la carte. Among the starters served are olives, jamon serrano and oysters, while you can size your main of tuna carpaccio or crab linguine to starter size. For mains (that only come in one size) there is capon, rib eye steak, or lamb cutlets. Desserts range from a cheese plate to lemon tarte to chocolate torte (although we didn't try them). The food is simple but well done, and is great value for money.

The drinks are by far the more impressive. There's an Enomatic machine, dispensing New Zealand Pinot and South American merlot. Ordering wine from the bar involves examining a useful grid system - choose a price range, cross reference it to a grape and begin. There are a large number of whiskies, a cut above the normal range available in a bar - I noticed an Oban 1992 Distiller's Edition, a Rosebank 20 yo and a Dalmore Gran Reserva, not to mention several Compass Boxes. The tequila and rum ranges are almost as extensive. The cocktail list is almost an afterthought after all this, but the house cocktails are fairly interesting and original.

Best of all, they have a range of Armagnacs, some fairly rare, ranging from 1955 to 1985. The idea is to have the Armagnac bottled in one's year of birth. Yogababe, the Pretty Lady and I eschewed dessert to try and see if any of birth-year Armagnacs were any good. They were, and I'll be blogging about them in a separate post.

The place is a private club after all, and attracts a buzzy media / advertising crowd, with the occasional City worker. I didn't like it enough to join (particularly since I'm male, and can't take advantage of the great ladies' discount), but I suppose I'll be back occasionally with Yogababe. The whisky range is definitely worth a trip or two.

Scores:

16 March 2008: TFQ = 22, CS = 19, S = 10, AD = 8, VfM = 9. Total = 68 points.

* poor service - they lost Yogababe's reservation by confusing her with someone else and marked her as a no show. I suppose it's still early days and they've got time to iron things out.

What does this mean?