Bar Kinky, bar review: can you be sultry and industrial?

 (Bar Kinky)
(Bar Kinky)

Moments after we take our seat at the bar, a man walks into the adjacent snug and begins “smudging”. This, for those unaware, is the burning of palo santo, a wood taken from a sacred tree native to South America. The smoke is believed to help clear the air of negative energy. My mum sometimes does it at her home in Devon. I am pro-palo santo because I find it relaxing.

But tonight I am in London, at Bar Kinky, a sultry space in the basement below the Georgian restaurant Kinkally on Charlotte Street. It was founded by the young restaurateur Diani Militski in homage to khinkali — filled Georgian dumplings with a “striking, twisted form” — though the subterranean cocktails exist under the stewardship of mixologist Andrew Pruts.

The place is industrial, with sleek cladding on the walls and a large marble bar in the centre, behind which bartenders host. I know I mentioned Berlin last week but there are distinct shades again: techno music; dim red lights and sweeping blue curtains; beautiful people drinking something gin-based before skipping off to warmer climes in pursuit of recovery.

 (Bar Kinky)
(Bar Kinky)

To begin, drinks from the menu, a list of inventive, playful combinations that might blend rum with passionfruit and marzipan or tequila with tarragon and Irish cream. I have a Nomad, Pruts’ take on a negroni: gin, vermouth, strawberry and coriander. It arrives beneath a veritable hedge of wild herbs: Alan Titchmarsh on the lash. I nibble them between sips. My companion gets a “Mastery” — gin, cucumber, sesame, tonka beans — and declares it “special”. A compliment indeed: she is not easily pleased.

We are both taken by Bar Kinky. It is fabulous. And so we stay for many more, quickly deviating to the classics; part-test, part-Wednesday night fever. Hemingway daiquiris for me, each made fastidiously and with panache. They are in the top 10 per cent of London’s offerings. For her? Vodka martinis, shaken and moderately dirty. They suit our environs and punctuate cigarettes outside where Charlotte Street is returning to former excellence.

This bar must not be overlooked. It is a statement; an example of the best of new-London.

Cocktails from £14. Bar Kinky, 43 Charlotte Street, kinkally.co.uk