Big Easy Covent Garden

Words by Jane Ryan

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Address: 12 Maiden Lane, London, London, WC2E 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 3728 4888
Email: coventgarden@bigeasy.co.uk
Website: view Big Easy Covent Garden’s website
Door: Open door
Style: Restaurant bar
Food: Bar Snacks
Established: 2014

Review

The second site for Big Easy opened this March in the heart of Covent Garden. It's a cavernous two-story site decorated in a similar fashion to the Kings Road venue.

Inside the ground floor wraps itself around the staircase which descends into the basement. The bar here is an impressively large affair with bottles lined up in ordered rows and covered in small lights, giving prominence in the rather dimly-lit room. The few stools are usually occupied but there is plenty of standing room.

In the basement there is a second bar with booths and a display of all the must-have modern cocktail books. Drinks here are simple and well-made with a great selection of absinthe cocktails. Upstairs the offering is dominated by the slushies which are out of this world. There's a Strawberry Daiquiri, Piña Colada and Margarita offering but it's the Sazerac, made with rye whiskey, absinthe, lemon, white sugar, Peychaud's and Angostura bitters, alongside the Miami Vice - a Strawberry Daiquiri on top of a Piña Colada - that really stand out. Somehow they just work.

Overall the venue is fun, welcoming and has a great selection of booze and cocktails. Add in customers wearing bibs to eat and it's a blast. 4/5

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