Pull up a seat for a sharpener...

..at our pick of the finest bars to open in the capital in 2024

- JOSH BARRIE

In 2021, I bought a book called The Tavern is My Drum from a onearmed man in Manchester. An autobiography published in 1948, its author was a man called Joseph Vecchi, who had been maître d' in many of Europe's grandest hotels during the Roaring Twenties. Though he is cloying and overzealous with his adoration of the aristocracy, the book is worth reading for anyone who enjoys sipping Manhattans below chandeliers, as I do.

Vecchi ran the restaurant at Claridge's when George V was crowned and later oversaw the French restaurant at the Astoria in St Petersburg, where his encounters with royalty continued and where his accounts became more compelling still. His reminiscing of an all-female party hosted by the sultry night wizard Rasputin is titled "Russia Dances to Destruction"; it is duly disparaging of the man, who apparently ate with his "talon-like" fingers, raucously drinking all the while before slipping away down a hidden staircase to cavort in telltale faux philosophical grandeur.

However terrible Rasputin was, a bar from whom it takes its name tops my list this year: Rasputin's (171 Mare Street, E8 @rasputinsbar). I don't think anywhere in London defines a changing culture as Rasputin's does, in that it is frivolous but affordable, whimsical yet welcoming. It was opened accidentally -originally, as a prep kitchen, but soon a bar transpired by the team behind cult sandwich purveyor Dom's Subs. At Rasputin's, five-olive martinis are nothing but fun for £7, each one a reminder that being alive need not always be too costly. See also £3 mystery shots and a "recession busting" offer comprising a pint and two hotdogs for £11. I love the place, illuminated in red, a little wonky, framed as some might frame Berlin.