Anam: My favourite cocktail bar.

Courtesy of Shane Harrison.com
http://www.shaneharrison.com/site/

'All good things come in small packages' or so the saying goes. Normally I scoff at this age-old adage, dismissing it as a get-out clause frequently rolled out by short people. It's like saying I'm small so I must be good. Snigger.

When it comes to my favourite cocktail bar, tucked away on Chapel Market in Angel, I have to admit it's a point well made. With seating for only 15 people upstairs and around 20 downstairs, Anam is small but perfectly formed. This alone isn't anything special - what makes it my favourite cocktail bar is the amazing barman. Winter or summer, rain, snow or shine he will greet you with a smile, a friendly 'how are you', some excellent banter and proceed to make your favourite cocktail with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency.

Last week was a bit of a shocker; I saw the new SATC movie and it was awful. No matter how much I loved the series, even maybe the first movie, there is no escaping the fact that the second one is a shocker. I was heartbroken.

As if that wasn't enough, the boy I was dating mysteriously disappeared off of the face of the earth, which is always a bit gutting. What do you do in that situation? When you go on your fifth date, which you think went quite well and then nothing? Not even a courteous It's not you, it's me message?

So far as I can see, there are only a number of options available to you. If you give him a call and he picks up the phone do you say - err so I was just wondering what happened to you for the last 8 days?

If you call and he doesn't pick up do you take it a step further and call from a friend's number to see if he picks up then and quickly hang up the phone (in the manner of a semi-stalker) if he does? Or do you not call and instead blindly hope that he has been struck down by a bus and is currently in the throes of amnesia but is mumbling your name whilst in hospital and his mother is trying to figure out who this mysterious Julianna girl is?

I opted for the latter, and a catchup over cocktails - the best salve to love life problems I've discovered to date. There is nothing that a good gossip and a sip of something fruity cannot cure... So Anam it was. Browsing through the gargantuan menu is half the fun here - there are drinks on this list you would never have dreamt of as well as old favourites.

Dubious as it sounds, they also make the best Long Island Iced Tea, turning it from a horrible confection of gut-rotting spirits savoured by fake-burburry lovers in the local 'Spoons into a far classier (who'd have thought?) balance of flavours deliciously offset by a generous squeeze of lime. And there's an outdoor seating area in the summer, which is great for watching the rather random life of Chapel Market go by. Boy, what boy?

3 Chapel Market
Islington, London N1 9EZ
020 7278 1001

This is the first of three posts - watch out for the next two tomorrow!