Dorsia is one of London’s newest and most exciting private member clubs. Sat opposite the natural history museum is a club which offers top class drinks, a fantastic décor and a dining to boot. Dorsia is made up of three floors; the top being a fine dining experience, with a concise, yet tempting menu. If you go one floor down you will find the bar and lounging area – this is a great area for mingling with friends, sampling one of the cocktails or for wooing that special person in your life. Thirdly, the bottom floor is home to the Dorsia Nightclub, where you can let your hair down and enjoy the beginning of the weekend. Dorsia is open Monday-Saturday 6pm-3am and Sunday 6pm-12.30am.
From what I could tell, you also have to be highly attractive and not too old, in order to get a membership here; I couldn’t see many people who I would describe as over middle age.
The Cocktails
The cocktails menu offers some classic blends and some Dorsia twists, including a Daiquiri Section, Margarita Section and a few contemporary twists.
As we were visiting Dorsia, where else could we start, but with the Dorsia Island Iced Tea? (£8) The cocktail is a blend of Bacardi, Absolut Citron, St. Germaine elderflower liqueur, Cuervo Tradicional, Kammerlings with fresh lemon juice topped with peach juice. The peach juice and elderflower liquor form the most interesting part of this take on a classic; they are delightfully refreshing flavours which work well with the citrus vodka, furthermore, the peach juice is a gorgeous twist on the standard coke finish of the Long Island Iced Tea. This drink will open your eyes to iced teas - forget the coke topped Long Island versions you remember.
Everybody is a Daiquiri lover, am I right? Well I certainly am, so I next I tried one of the “Light” Daiquiri’s. Sold with the tag line of “Float like a butterfly, sting like bee”, the simple ingredients of Bacardi, lime and sugar, make for a light, refreshing and perfectly balanced tipple. I would be hard to find anyone, even the most adamant t-total, to not enjoy this cocktail. There are various strengths of Daiquiri’s available; you can go all the way up to a “Nuclear”, although it is not for the feint hearted and its absinth base means you can only have one per customer. Unfortunately, I wasn’t brave enough for one of these!
Now to a classic, the Mojito. Originating in Cub, this cocktail mixed Bacardi eight years old, lime, sugar and mint topped with soda. This is one of the finest Mojitos I have ever tasted. The Barcadi cut through, but did not over run, the mint flavour, therefore making for a deliciously balanced blend of flavours. I thought I was back in Cuba, on holiday!
But my favourite drink, and by quite a long way too, is the Porn Star Martini( £10). The drink is a wonderful concoction of Absolut vanilla vodka, passion fruit and vanilla sugar with Moet & Chandon on the side. I absolutely adore passion fruit in cocktails and this was perfect. The ability to move between Moet and the sweetness of the passion fruit was a joy. I would recommend having these all night.
Another drink that includes Moet is the “Bateman is a Shot” (£8). The drinks is composed of Grey Goose, pomegranate, strawberry and crème de mure, topped with Moet. This is a drink that combines sweetness with a stern vodka undertone – lovely.
One cocktail that we did not find at all pleasant, was the “Violence” – it certainly did conflict with our taste buds! It is a blend of tanqueray, violet sugar, lemon juice and apple juice… Just give it a miss!
Bearing in mind the decent value of the cocktails on show, the long drinks sold at Dorsia seem contrastingly pricey and begin at approximately £8 for a single Absolut Vodka and Coke. In short, go for the cocktails, because of their great taste and fantastic flavours, they offer much better value and are far more satisfying.
Downstairs at the Dorsia - The Night Club
As mentioned previously, Dorsia has three floors and we were lucky enough to venture downstairs, to the lower ground Night Club. For us, this was a mixed bag…
On the positive side, the downstairs area can hold 100 people, and carries on the glamorous and lavish feel of the upstairs bar area. A narrow set of Carrera marble stairs sweep down to the club, where you can find black granite floors a bar constructed of solid lit onyx. Visually this is a fabulous area for a dance, a chat or even parties. The music is also fantastic; an in-house DJ also nestles within the club and played some great tracks from all genres. In short, good music, plush finishes and an array of dazzling decorative flourishes. In the night club you can also purchase a great selection of spirits, mixers and beers, if you are so inclined.
On the negative side… there were a couple of very rude members of staff downstairs; we were sat in one of the seating areas when, without any explanation, we were asked to move from the seat without being told why. This was a shame, as the rest of the evening was highly enjoyable and we were a little shocked by this.
http://thedorsia.co.uk/membership/
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