Super Lyan

NOTE: Super Lyan is currently closed for refurbishment. Which, in Mr. Lyan speak, usually means it’s closed to transform into a completely different bar. Watch this space…

Ryan Chetiyawardana.

First and foremost, he’s known as Mr Lyan, proprietor of Super Lyan, the flagship bar in his growing, game-changing cocktail empire. When the place first opened as White Lyan 4 years ago, it didn’t have any ice, branded booze, or fruit of any kind.

Now, the place has been freshly reinvented in keeping with the bar’s own drive to stay at the bleeding edge of the industry. That means that the basement space has been pared back to simple banquette seating, bare brick walls, and the reassuringly seedy glow of red neon. Because the real eye-openers come from behind the bar, in the form of reinvented classic cocktails.

Those cocktails are lovingly referred to as “Bitchin’ Classics” and involve taking a normal, innocent, classic cocktail that seems to be minding its own business, and totally reinventing it from the ground up. Their Pillow Manhattan, for instance, involves leathered cherry and two types of vermouth, while their Archangel Gimlet has cucumber & watermelon agave, and their Dog’s Nose Clover Club includes botanical sherbet & stout.

Being a bar that makes its own, well, everything, they also have some Lyan lager on tap (just in case a non-cocktail drinker accidentally wanders in) and some bar snacks such as popcorn with cheese & pine dust, olives with vermouth & herbs, or homemade ricotta crackers.

Yep, he’s cracked it.

NOTE: Super Lyan is currently closed.

Super Lyan | 153-155 Hoxton Street, N1 6PJ

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