Tipped

Funky Continental

October 02, 2008

A cool place to chill in the Hoxton/Shoreditch area, despite being quite a long, thin layout, they recently relocated the bar counter, and this has resulted in a much more open feeling upstairs and a lot more space between the retro leather sofas and ottoman stools which were very squished in before. Upstairs the walls are plastered from floor to ceiling with bold streety grafitti murals which are part of an ever-evolving story as Juno hosts 'Secret Wars' about once a fortnight where top Grafitti artists battle it out in a one-on-one live draw-off to see who will be crowned king of the street art scene. Quite cool really, but a bit of a shame that some really great-looking work gets painted over in the process, but I suppose that's just art reflecting life in a sense.

Downstairs there's a dungeony sort of feel to the small intimate dance floor, which is transformed into a sort of cinema style viewing area on footie nights, when it's quite common to have more continental European fans in the place than Brits, making for a quite special atmosphere sometimes. I was there when Stevie Gerard eventually scored his 100th goal and Robbie Keen got his first for Liverpool against PSV Eindhoven.

Food is a sort of mix of delicious European and North African dishes, the service friendly and helpful, and the drinks reflect the continental atmosphere too. for example they have Moretti on tap that comes served in a balloon pint glass. Tres sophistique!

Oh- and they even have retro arcade games like PacMan and 1984!

Tags: continental, cool, retro, chilled