ecc chinatown

cocktails

you'd be forgiven for believing that there could be a bar behind a worn down and weary grey door with a large splatter of paint on it in chinatown. in fact the combination of a door that looked so sorry for itself along with the fact that we were right in the middle of chinatown meant that i had some serious reservations about z's. plan. however, a love of cocktails and a sense of adventure mean that i will gladly give anything a try. 

z. very kindly asked a gentleman who evidently looked like the type of person who would be policing entry to a trendy bar whether we could give the place a try. it was early on a saturday evening and i suspect that is why it was fairly easy for us to make our way up the stairs of a three story townhouse. you would normally need to reserve beforehand. from the cocktail menu we established that the name of the place was ecc chinatown. it's a concise little list with some very interesting cocktails. i decided to be my very conventional self and picked the kir de la bastille. o had a refreshing long cocktail called a drunken viking which had a clean and refreshing cucumber and celery taste. there was a dj from ghana who was playing a really lovely mix of jazz-esque music giving the place a lounge type feel. human conversation subdued by the thick carpeting was broken intermittently by the sound of a cocktail being shaken.  

we had two rounds of drinks which ended on the rather high note of absinthe shots for z. and o and tequila with lime for me. i wouldn't have necessarily chosen to conclude my evening at ecc that way. i loved the unpretentiousness of the bar, the music and crowd and would have been much happier sipping more kir de la bastilles. but that's what happens when you go drinking with a friend that you haven't seen since you got married.  

as always, google helped solve the mystery of the initials 'ecc'. it turns out that ecc is short for the experimental cocktail club and ecc chinatown is the london outpost of the parisian experimental cocktail club which incidentally is featured on the world's best bars. so if any of you are crossing the channel it may be worth sipping some cocktails at ecc in paris.