Graphic

4 Golden Sqaure
London W1F 9HT

Stumbling blindly in from the sun-drenched and aptly-named Golden Square, your immediate feelings for Graphic are probably akin to what went through poor Augustus Gloop’s mind just after he accidentally plunged into Willy Wonka’s chocolate river and got sucked up a pipe: Oh my, I’m being engulfed by a wave of soft, brown stuff and the further in I tumble, the more it squeezes me so (only with a better German accent, of course).

Graphic’s narrow structure combines the oft-used worlds of chocolate, leather and booths to produce something that looks like the inside of a moist cake.

Clearly, someone had been reading a well-thumbed edition of A Dummies Guide to Bar Design (1998 Edition). It’s one thing to add a splash of colour here and there; it’s another to bloody drown the place with it.

How-very-much-ever, all is certainly not lost. Have a little sit down, alter the colour levels by donning a pair of rose-tinted glasses, and get to work on the real reason for going to Graphic in the first place: drinkie winkies.

Graphic doesn’t do many cocktails. It does many to the power of 3; times infinity; plus one. Every type, flavour, strength, religion, gender, sexually-swayed, breed, creed, kind and colour of mixed liquid is available for you to pour down your eager gullet or your best shirt/frock. Inventive spectacles of art contained within vessels that themselves are a work of unique creativity. If they don’t have it, you’re probably in the wrong place. They even cook the fruit right there in front of you on the bar, if you like that sort of thing. There’s a £9.50 Porn Star that comes (tee-hee) with a shot of champagne; there’s a £32 rum-heavy Sy-Tai especially made for sharing, or alcoholics; plus, there’s the Long Island Ice Tea that, due to it’s strength, is restricted to two per person per night. Tip: if you ever joyfully hopped and skipped as a child at the thought of necking a packet of delicious Parma Violet sweets, then give the Mrs Miagi a whirl.

Delighted, glee-ridden hugs and kisses must go to the smart banana who sourced such an interesting book of booze: Swedish cider, Chinese bottles, Japanese draught, Mexican-only Tequila, and nine types of Kentucky bourbon alone! The menu is so absurdly comprehensive, the bookies have it at odds-on favourite to win the next Man Booker prize; probably.

The high-end concept doesn’t stop with just the drinks though. To accompany your creations of varying strength and size, there’s sustenance of another form, food, and at Graphic they operate a strict on-a-stick regime. Skewered for what they coin ‘social dining’ - or sharing for those who went to a good primary school – the seared tuna with sesame seed dip and the haloumi cheese with redcurrant dip are both champions of the astute palette.

Graphic is also good for work: get a healthy wheatgrass detox shot when it opens at 10am; follow that with a coffee or homemade lemongrass & ginger lemonade; then business-meeting your brains out by utilising the free wifi. That, plus all of the above, should see you through to about midnight. And with a glut of big pant-wearing brands lurking in the back streets nearby, Graphic is bound to catch the noses of the media hounds.

Graphic is not a destination; it’s a holding lounge for the West End. You know how you’ve always wanted to sneak into one of those top notch airport executive lounges where the staff wait on your every wanton need? Graphic is that lounge. It’s the cerebral location known as ‘The Comfort Zone’. Clusters of people don’t dance, they sway. Caught in a pre-club rant about blah, blah and blah-blah, yeh?!

If you can get passed the obsessive ‘brown’ compulsion the designers suffered from whilst imaging the interior, then Graphic is a sturdy 8 out of 10. The manager has brought along some of that fresh thinking clout that he gained whilst working at his former haunts – Mahiki, Plan B and 22 Below. This promising haven is manned by a squad of mixologist geeks who do for Soho what Victor Frankenstein did for his monster.

Good for: those dolled-up, girly nights when credit cards are wielded like weapons and conversations manifest into a series of hysterical giggles.

Bad for: secluded romantic liaisons when you’re aiming for fourth base and you’re getting nothing but a strike out. OR if you’re averse to anything with fruit in it.