Bar review: RUBY BLUE (Leicester Square)

Smack bang in the middle of London’s Leicester Square is Ruby Blue, a nightclub-bar-restaurant hybrid. With bouncers standing outside and Vegas-esque lights luring you in, there’s something rather daunting about waiting to go in as your name is being checked off a reservation list. 

But once you’re in there, it’s a very personable place, where the staff are friendly and genuinely go out of their way to help you (I needed to find a mains somewhere to charge up my iPod and one waitress was more than obliging – a very nice touch because in other parts of central London if you were to say “where can I charge up my iPod?” you would be met by nothing but a derisive stare).

The food itself is nothing special; I ordered Thai green chicken curry, and the rice was stale and the chicken wasn’t particularly well-cooked either. To make matters worse, it was served with a side of prawn crackers; a confusing addition that suggested the kitchen couldn't quite tell the difference between a Thai curry house and a standard Chinese takeaway.

The “Surf and Turf”, one of Ruby Blue’s featured dishes, a big-ass steak meal, was more of a hit, which tasted very good indeed. But where Ruby Blue really excelled wasn’t in its culinary skills, but its drinks. 

5-8pm on a Friday is Happy Hour, when all drinks are half price, and I would recommend that you go along then to take advantage of this deal, for some of their cocktails are out of this world. The Cream Cake was my personal favourite, a delightful blend of cream and Bailey’s. It was a potent drink; I was getting drunk, but the clever thing is I didn’t even notice due to the deliciousness of the drink. And that, to me, is the sign of a great cocktail.

One final thing to say is that whilst from the outside, Ruby Blue likes to present the optics of being some exclusive club for VIP, once you get in there, you notice that this isn’t the case at all. The crowd watching the England match yesterday were dressed in completely casual attire, and the atmosphere inside the bar area was no different from a standard local pub. The only real distinction was that the drink prices were considerably higher.

Overall, it was a fun place to be with friends, but somewhat let down by thinking itself to be better than it really was. 

Grade: B- 

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