Swingin' Soho, Pre-drinks Needed

The Black Gardenia is an atmospheric little basement bar in Soho. Staff dresses in 50s rockabilly style, open daily until 1am, this tiny bar spins 40s-60s music. Bands also play there as a venue. Cover varies each night from £2-5 and up. Red walls, with mirrored flower patterned décor, the bar itself is quite nice. The biggest downside of this bar is that not only there are no tapped drafts, only in cans and costs a heaping £3.50 for one. £5 for a double mixer and £6 for cocktails. The highly marked up prices give-away was when one of the staff came back with handful of cans of beer from Tesco across the street. It's terrible but also gave us idea to sneak beer from the store back into the venue. Pre-drinks elsewhere recommended as it's not an ideal place to get trash or it will be a very expensive night. The room that the bands played in gets very hot and also the restroom isn't too clean. You could sorta smell it in the floor stage area.

A User - 02/06/2007 | report this review