Type of Bar: Pop up, Winter, Bar/Restaurant
Damage: ££
Ideal for: Hot Chocolate, Date, Small Groups, Food
One more month of winter!
With the weather getting harsher and seeming to go on forever, the Hoodooist thought we better cover another warm-up cocktail spot for the rest of the season.
The Le Chalet bar/restaurant pop up at Selfridges has been set up by the excellent Q Grill London on the roof of the department store with its own express lift to hot choctails and winter comfort food. A becouched and bequilted indoors and heated outdoors make for a versatile experience regardless of the weather outside.
Foreground: ‘The Dominican’; Background: ‘The Hazelnut’
Let’s get down to business though, in drinks, Le Chalet offers either winter-themed cocktails, or boozy hot chocolate – not as thick and indulgent as the hot chocolate at Floridita’s Ski Chalet Pop up (Click HERE for Review!), but making them easier to drink here. The most successful of the hot choctails tasted was easily the Hazelnut, hazelnut liqueur, almond liqueur, dark chocolate liqueur – tasting pretty much like a liquid Ferrero Rocher. A perfect dessert drink.
The Dominican adds Brugal spiced rum and cinnamon liqueur to the hot chocolate, to warm you up nicely – however, there seems to be some conflict in flavour, although this could be up to personal taste. The rum brings the toffee and caramel, as well as some pepper, maybe Demerara? Worth trying out to make one’s mind up. An enjoyable topping of whipped cream and cinnamon.
The Choc-work Orange (brilliant): Orange liqueur and dark chocolate liqueur in a hot chocolate: somehow, the weakest of the three – too intense on the orange, doesn’t quite work.
‘The Honeycomb Old Fashioned’, the ‘Gingerbread Slipper’, ‘The Choc-Work Orange’
Let’s check out the cocktails:
The Honeycomb Old Fashioned is actually a great idea: Maker’s Mark whiskey, whisky barrel aged bitters, and instead of sugar, a slowly melting slab of honeycomb. Initially the Maker’s Mark is intense, but increases in honey sweetness as the honeycomb melts away. Halfway through, the honeycomb becomes intense with a buttery sweetness, and takes longer to finish. Give yourself a good while to drink this, and though great when bitterly cold, I can’t imagine having something so dense and sweet on a warmer day.
Brugal spiced rum, gingerbread, lemon and egg white make up the Gingerbread Slipper, not too a fairly citrus drink that takes the edge off the lemon with the gingerbread, that mainly mellows it out. Nothing complex, and lacking a bit of character.
Service-wise, no complaints. In summary, Le Chalet is a great place to pop by when in the area before the end of February, hot choctails to enjoy after a wee bit of shopping.
Drinks: ***
Atmosphere: ***
Service: ***
Selfridges London
400 Oxford Street,
London, W1A 1AB
Highball Hoodoo 