Artesian

At the 5 star Langham Hotel’s cocktail bar, less is more.

Except when it comes to the decor.

It’s been designed as a nod to the old Victorian cabinets of curiosities: desks, sideboards, even rooms brimming with exotic objects brought back from around the world… although really the result is somewhere between that, and what you’d expect from a £350-a-night hotel bar.

Mirrored shelves lined with bottles are displayed in gilded, pagoda-style frames; lamp shades rest on horse heads; and the seating is all purple leather. However it also boasts a few classical touches, like the floor-to-ceiling bay windows which flood the space with light during the daytime, and huge, over-sized chandeliers that bathe it in a warm, yellowy glow at night.

It’s possible you already know about Artesian, as it was crowned World’s Best Bar four years in a row (2011-2015) – though it’s changed hands since then. Holding the reins nowadays are Head Bartender Remy Savage (previously of Paris’ Little Red Door, which he also helped to get to #11 on the World’s Best list), and Bar Manager Anna Sebastian (who spent many years with the esteemed Beaufort Bar).

Over the lockdown, the team put their heads together to create a new menu themed around Connection. After a period of stripped-back minimalism, featuring drinks made with two key ingredients, theatricality is back on the menu here. Meticulously prepared in their underground drinks laboratory and served with super-cold, high-density ice, current concoctions include the Layer Cake, combining Bacardi 8 Rum, kernel stout syrup, chocolate malt distillate and coconut cream; Around The Kitchen, with gin, Discarded banana rum, avocado pit orgeat, pineapple & coffee tepache, lime juice and cachaca; and the Beach Bar Paradise, whose layered gin, Chambord, horchata ice cream and blue curacao slowly ebb into each other to create the illusion of waves lapping up against a beach – in a glass.

You should dive right in.

NOTE: Artesian is open Mon-Sat (no bookings on Fri/Sat). For more information or to book, visit their website here.

Artesian | Langham Hotel, 1C Portland Place, W1B 1JA

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