Jamaica Wine House, 28th January

The Jamaica Wine House has the honour of being one of, if not the oldest ‘coffee house’ in the City. It is tucked down one of the many little alleys that you find in this part of London and I think I only discovered it when I went to Simpsons a while ago.

It’s a classic olde pub – lots of ‘compartments’ to roam between, with wood that has been steeped in beer over the years. Of course it was busy and full of suits but this did not diminish its charms at all. Downstairs is the restaurant part where they serve the real food. this thinned out as the evening went on and was quite cute and cosy.

They have jumped on the bandwagon and their offering is mainly small plates – and they’re covering all the bases with something from everywhere - bhajis, tacos, foccaccia. Some dishes even combined cuisines (hoi sin duck taco anyone? Hint: say no). But it was mainly decent enough and you’re not going there to eat, you’re going to drink!

After this we went on to Steam and Rye which was the embodiment of everything I thought I would hate about City bars. If you find yourself here, sneak downstairs to escape the awfulness above. It was actually quite pleasant in the basement! I wouldn’t normally go but I was invited for the blog – we were promised some canapes and cocktails but no one seemed to know anything about it once we got there. An ordeal.