Drake and Morgan, bar review: Another King's Cross hit

What they say

Down an elegant staircase from the main dining room sits Drake & Morgan’s destination bar, busy with leather booths, serving house cocktails, and encouraging good times with punchbowls and sharing shakers.

What we say: Drake & Morgan’s huge site at King’s Cross is overwhelmingly large, which never inspires confidence: the worry is it’ll be empty, or that all the cocktails will come out rushed as nervy barmen battle sweaty businessmen waving their contactless cards. Happily, neither was true here: the cocktails were all finely made, given enough time, and the bar was merry with groups of friends and colleagues. There’s a decent cocktails list – mainly built around light, easy-drinking serves – and every single wine is offered by the glass as well as the bottle.

Good for: Bring your own group of friends or work mates: the drinks are the tempting, derailing kind that make a mockery of having “just the one”.

Order: The Doctor’s Orders (Kamm & Sons, mezcal, honey water, ginger and lemon, £8.50), a riff on the classic Penicillin, makes good use of the criminally underused British aperitif, and the mezcal is coiled through the drink like a smokey rope. Pure deliciousness and very moreish. A Bellini is a steal at £6.95 – certainly one of the best prices in King's Cross.

The sherried Old Fashioned (rye, pedro ximenez, walnut house blend bitters, £9.95) was rich and gorgeous, but the sherry seemed to somehow take it into Vieux Carre territory: damned good, but not exactly with any of the characteristics of an Old Fashioned. The rest of the list is a little one dimensional, but it'll be nice to see how things change with time. Until then, they won’t ruin a classic here: the barmen pay particular attention to how you take things – something some of the capital’s ‘top’ bars could learn from.

By the way: The bar food lives up to its name: just the sort of fare to soak up booze. Our meat platter did the job, but a few small plates would likely be a better way to do things.

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