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Floridita

Floridita

Floridita says:

Floridita’s incredibly stunning décor evokes 1930’s style Havana, creating the perfect blend of glamour and decadence from a by-gone era – the perfect backdrop for you to enjoy cocktails at the legendary Floridita Bar! Floridita is perfect for rum lovers as it boasts the most extensive selection of rums in Europe. Take one of the 5 rum cruises and sample a selection of rums from the extensive back-bar, each sipping selection is served with a ‘jam’ to accompany each sample! The cocktail menu also features an array of rum based cocktails including the ‘rum keg’ which serves 8-12 people amongst other fabulous sharing cocktails. The bar is open from 5.30pm – 3am making it the perfect location to begin or end your evening in London’s West End.

Social and Cocktail says:

Ernest Hemingway was a wise man, he said stuff like, “always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut”. Generally wise men should be listened to and thus I am sure his penchant for drinking Daiquiris at El Floridita in Havana was an excellent one. You might think therefore that the located a short boat ride across the Atlantic and which claims to emulate the 1930’s style of El Floridita would be one worth visiting. You’d be wrong.

Floridita

The problem is evident immediately ypon entering; rarely have a I visited a bar so lacking in atmosphere as here. It is as if someone turned the extractor fans in the kitchen on too high and sucked it all out. The staff can barely muster a smile, but then nor would I working here, for this is a bar with the personality of a soggy cocktail umbrella.

Arriving via the spiral staircase that twists itself into this dungeon of doom invariably serves only to highlight how this spacious and actually reasonably attractive venue has suffered at the hands of chronically lackluster management. Still, one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and first impressions on reading the contents of the cocktail menu at least are promising. Ignoring the fact that the very first cocktail listed is the Cosmopolitan, there is a strong focus on quality rum cocktails with several lesser known classics listed in addition to a whole section on various Daiquiris. A Cuban-inspired bar wouldn’t be right without a link to smoking and the ‘all up in smoke’ section lists a number of drinks created with cigar and tobacco bitters to intrigue the connoisseur.

Regrettably, it seems no-one told the bartenders how to make them. There was no fairer test I thought than a Hemingway Daiquiri but I can only assume the recipe was made up on the spot for I could have sworn it contained more grapefruit juice than rum, with the result being unsurprisingly unpalatable. Figuring I’d make it even easier and order a barrel-aged drink on the assumption that someone who knew what they were doing would have made the pre-mix; I was disappointed to learn that owing to customer feedback the resulting drink “tasted crap” and was no longer served. Now having an urge for a barrel-aged drink of some sort I plumped for the Negroni and enjoyed the resulting libation.

A second visit included a ‘Rum and Pine’ which was incorrectly listed as being made with muddled pineapple when in fact pineapple juice was used; a sin, but not as large a sin as the resulting drink which tasted pretty much like pineapple juice shaken with ice. Perhaps they were running low on rum. Figuring I’d finish with a bit a smoke I plumped for the ‘Diplomat’ which listed Diplomatic rum, fig liqueur, dessert wine and cigar and leather bitters at its ingredients. I shouldn’t have bothered.

The Cocktail Geek
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Cocktails85

Cosmo £9.00

Mojito £8.50

Margarita £9.50

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