‘fairly-priced drinks and passionate bar staff’
Something divine is happening on Paradise Row. Sounds like the start of a bad 1930s novel, doesn’t it? But between these five or six arches just around the corner from Bethnal Green station, there is a cohabitation of flavour and feeling being busily curated.
Having reviewed Tasca at CAV earlier this year, they cover the higher-end cuisine, table-service, curated cocktails and muted lighting. Next door, Arepa & Co (who I reviewed a couple of years ago when they were popping up in Oslo Hackney) provide generous Venezuelan street food, especially the eponymous loaded wraps. At the far end, craft beer joint Mother Kelly’s offers a more casual-cool, along with pizza further down at Fatto a Mano. Now, finally, a good old-fashioned dive bar has been added. With only one arch left to fill, this locale is rapidly becoming one of East London’s most delicious streets.
Inside the semi-circle of brick and metal, All My Gods has all the requirements of a downstairs dive/biker bar, the likes of which used to fill this fair city. If anyone remembers Alley Cats in Soho, which closed a few years ago, the neon, religious iconography and fantastic graphics are all here. Red-lit toilets and gifted artists’ spray-painted murals also feature. Thankfully, in this case, the dirt, smell and overflowing loos do not. A pool table and large outdoor benches hint that this place wants you to return again and again with friends-which will be no imposition if you, like me, enjoy fairly-priced drinks and passionate bar staff.
Chatting to Jacob and the team, we agree on many things: the perils facing the night-time economy (like business vampires), irritation at over-pretentious cocktail bars, and our shared appreciation-and apprehension-of the martini. All My Gods is aiming for unpretentious and unperformative; no gimmicks but plenty of style, all while working with high-quality ingredients, a scattering of silliness and a neighbourhood vibe. A tough tightrope to walk.
Having many of the cocktails on tap, thereby keeping them at £10, is an unusual step in a city where hooch prices are rising faster than sea levels. The watermelon margarita does not suffer from its encasement in a vat-a fresh yet juicy riff on the classic, perfect for those fleeting shafts of summer. Equally, the cooling mezcal verdita is a long, spiced drink perfect for chortling at one’s friends in the afternoon blaze, but without the expected sweetness that seasonal tipples seem to require. Mezcal is smoky and infinitely grown-up.
Using a Jägermeister shot machine to serve perfectly chilled martinis for £8 is another stroke of genius, of which Jacob is rightly proud. I mentally add it to my Christmas list, although strike it off again when I return home-for that way, dipsomania lies. The perfect martini for under £10: not the only thing in the venue that feels like a flashback from 1995.
Little Italy is their play on the Manhattan, using Cynar: an artichoke liqueur (they really will ferment anything, won’t they?), a deeper, earthier and somehow even more mature version, again served in a perfectly frosted martini glass.
Beers are £5 (sold you there, didn’t I?) wines are also reasonable but limited, and they have the most affordable glass of Ruinart Blanc de Blanc anywhere in the city. All My Gods ricochets between affordable fun, divinely decadent and endlessly revisitable. Come for the cocktails, but treat yourself to champagne-don’t we all need a little indulgence nowadays, a reward for all that simply angelic behaviour?
They’re farr to cool for reservations but check out the graphics? Click HERE!