Slurp Exotic Cocktails On An Orient Express Train Carriage
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The fun begins at Mr Fogg's Society of Exploration from the get-go. A wooden ball is sent rolling down a track skirting a staircase peppered with Victorian travel gimcrack, and you chase it down into the ersatz gentleman's club beneath.
The latest incarnation of the Fogg's franchise is another Insta-savvy speakeasy: all safari-suited staff and steampunk booze-wheels; all just on the right side of gimmicky. The centrepiece is an 'Orient Express' train carriage, where you sip drinks among battered suitcases and tasseled lampshades. It's a concept they may well have nabbed from wartime speakeasy Cahoots (well, it is a sister bar), but a brilliant touch nonetheless. The seats — if you manage to nab one — are extremely comfy.
None of this is much good without a decent list of libations. True to its adventurous spirit, Fogg's pulls out the stops with a small novella of drinks, conjuring up the furthest reaches of the globe. Cocktails like the Sahara-inspired A Mirage (vodka and bergamot liqueur swirled with burnt lemon and salted honey) and the tangy tropical punch that is the Rapa Nui (served in your nan's sugar bowl, apparently, but whatever).
These are fun drinks alright — if something of a gamble for first-timers. It's worth asking the staff for more details on what to expect (we ordered two cocktails each and ended up swapping both). And don't get us started on that niggling trait of dropping half an iceberg into each drink.
Still, you don't come to Mr Fogg's to sip a Cuba Libre. This is somewhere to show off to a friend visiting the city, while you both drink from a Moai-shaped drinking vessel that has blue candy floss hair.
Mr Fogg's Society of Exploration, 1A Bedford Street, WC2E 9HH.
Last Updated 18 February 2019
