Can you have a healthy alcoholic drink? Apparently so – if you believe the current London foodie trends. Just add a dash of cold-pressed juice or a few blended superfoods to your tipple and you don’t need to do ‘Dry January’. Here’s our pick of restaurants serving healthy cocktails…
Head to Brockwell’s “spectacular” lido-side café and try the Green Goddess, a drink they say contains nutrients and botanicals on top of a dash of booze. It includes lemon juice, kale juice, sugar syrup and soda water. Even the Kamm and Sons ginseng spirit has a healthy glow about it, distilled with echinacea, goji berries and Manuka honey.
Marcus Wareing’s newcomer has teamed up with cold-pressed, organic juice and smoothie company, BoBo’s Juicery, to offer a range of healthy concoctions throughout January. Cocktails include the Gimlet (gin, ginger, pineapple and wheatgrass) and the Hail Mary (vodka, beetroot, carrot, coriander, fennel, lime, parsley, worcestershire sauce, tabasco, and celery stick to garnish).
Attached to the Montcalm hotel in Marble Arch (but not so as you would know it), this dining room didn’t garner much feedback in this year’s survey, but the buzz around it has been pretty positive. If you haven’t been yet, why not try the bar out first? Sixtyone’s bar manager has created a range of healthy New Year cocktails, including: Carrot and ginger margarita (tequila blanco, agave syrup, fresh carrot and ginger juice, fresh lime and rosemary); the detox julep (gin, cucumber, green tea and honey) and the Ernest Especial detox (Havana Club 3yrs, celery, peach, agave syrup, fresh lime and anis foam).
Could this be the UK’s healthiest cocktail? Created especially with the post-Christmas detox in mind, this virtuous alcoholic libation is made from vodka infused with ginseng, guarana and mate tea, topped up with kale and carrot juice, with a ginger and chia seed jam.
Voted one of London’s top five Indian restaurants in this year’s Harden’s survey (as well as placing 58 on the Sunday Times Food List), Atul Kochhar’s Mayfair establishment is offering a January ‘re-tox’ cocktail menu. Benares’s concoctions contain warming, fragrant and cleansing spices such as ginger, turmeric and cardamom. On the menu: Benares Hot Toddy (fresh ginger, black pepper, whole cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick with Diplomatico rum, fresh lemon and honey served hot), Sloe January (sloe gin shaken with fresh kiwi, fresh blackberries, fresh lemon and elderflower topped with cranberry juice) and the Cucumber Cooler.
The bar at London’s Hilton Tower is also serving an array of immune-boosting, alcoholic cocktails this cold and flu season. We don’t want to make any claims for their ability to fight off a chesty cough or blocked nose, but they do sound rather tasty. Sip on a Coconut Cure (Bacardi, coconut, pineapple and lime), yet another Green Goddess (Cointreau, tequila, grenadine, blueberries and spinach) or try the Ruba Remedy (lemongrass vodka, tomato juice and spices mixed with beetroot juice) and the Absolut Immunity (beetroot juice, vodka, apple juice and ginger).
For some post work healthy concoctions this month head to Plateau in Canary Wharf for quinoa vodka-based drinks, or hit City spots Coq d’Argent – to try out their Cucumber Celery Martini – and the Paternoster Chop House for the Saints & Sinners cocktail list.
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