I have recently become obsessed with finding the best
Bloody Mary in London.
This obsession started after my visit to
Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair last summer. Their Bloody Mary is expensive
(around £15) but is absolutely delicious. It is vegetarian friendly too as they
make their own spice mixture and don’t use the non-vegetarian Worcestershire
sauce which many pubs and bars do. It is spicy but not overbearing and it really is a meal in itself. Coupled with the complimentary snacks that you get in
Brown’s Hotel which are frequently replenished it can stave off hunger pangs for an hour or two!
I recently went on Pete Berthoud’s “ultimate pub crawl” which started in Donovan's Bar at Brown’s so I had to order my favourite. It was as
good as on my previous visit although I had the quandary of what to do with the
individual peppercorns that were balanced on the stick of celery above the
glass which I hadn’t seen before. Those of us that had
Bloody Marys wondered what the etiquette was. We all decided to tip the peppercorns into our drink and
hoped it wouldn’t affect the taste too much. This was a good idea until we
reached the bottom of the glass and started sucking up whole peppercorns
through the straw so there was then the dilemma of taking them individually out
of our mouths! Thankfully we were sitting in the “naughty corner” (an area
slightly offset from the bar decorated with some of Terence Donovan’s more
risqué photos) so were slightly hidden from view.
A couple of hours later the last stop on our "crawl" was the
American Bar of the Savoy Hotel and it was the first time I had ever been in
there. Slightly inebriated with a piano tinkling in the background this was the
ultimate in bars. I decided to order a Bloody Mary to compare with Brown’s
which I had anticipated to be more or less the same. Unfortunately it wasn’t. It
was lacking in spice and thickness not helped by an enormous block of ice in
the drink.
Does anyone have suggestions of places in Central
London that serve the best Bloody Mary preferably cheaper than
Brown’s. However I am now completely
spoiled and prefer ones made with individual spices rather than the usual
Worcestershire sauce. Maybe a recipe to make my own would be cheaper – ideas
welcome!
Labels: Bloody Mary, cocktail bars, Guided walks, hotel bars, Mayfair