Zetter Townhouse: cocktail at Wilhelmina's

This cocktail bar is the lounge of the Zetter Townhouse Hotel in Clerkenwell. The room is designed like a private residence of the nineteenth century with wooden floors, red velvet curtains and comfy 'baroque' seats.

The owner is a fictional character called Wilhelmina, an eccentric lady whose portrait will welcome at the entrance of the bar. Behind the bar, the ideas and talent of Tony Conigliaro, considered one of the best barman in the world and defined by some as the Heston Blumenthal of cocktails.

The atmosphere is cozy, the room is candlelit and not overcrowded and cocktails are good - not mind blowing -: the right setting to spend some time with an old friend sharing stories and commenting news.

Two are the most famous cocktails (always in the menu):

- the Master at arms, apparently dedicated to an affair of Wilhelmina with a captain of the royal navy

- the Flintlock, sharing the name with the type of lock used on muskets, pistols, and rifles in the 17th-19th centuries, and containing gin and gunpowder tea tincture.

We tried as well the Bootlace Old Fashioned, an interesting old fashioned with a fresh note of liquorice.