The Social, Fitzrovia, W1

Ground-floor bar and basement music venue, hidden away in a side street. Accessed via a gloomy corridor, the former is a narrow space with a full-length counter on one side with five low booths opposite, and very dimly lit too. Calm late afternoon atmosphere though, with some decent blues playing at just the right level. No cask ale, but Wanna Go to the Sun pale ale (£6.50) and a lager from Lost & Grounded available from the six keg taps in addition to mainstream beers from Camden Town, Beavertown and Budweiser.

This is the ground floor, public bar of the venue previously known as the Heavenly Social – a live music venue/nightclub formerly owned by Heavenly Records and famous for putting on lots of bands from their early roster and promoting new acts since the label moved on in 1999. The bar is a fairly basic affair, with a single rectangular room which has the servery down the right hand side and seating along the opposite wall. The room is bare boarded and has tongue and groove panelled walls, strip lighting and a very basic servery with five recesses in the bar back to hold their simple range of spirits. Seating comes almost exclusively from U-shaped padded banquettes that create booth-like spaces down the left hand wall. The room, as you might expect, has been decorated with lots of super-cool gig posters for acts that played here or were once on the Heavenly label. It goes without saying that a cool indie soundtrack will likely accompany any visit here. The venue can be found down a staircase from the entrance corridor. As you descend, you can appreciate the building’s rather unique design from a set of windows that allow you to look through to the bar below – features incorporated by architects David Adjaye and Will Russell when the venue re-opened in 1999. The gig space is very narrow, with a low stage at one end which has a dancefloor in front of it and a raised seating space with high stools and padded bench booths to the right. The room extends down through a long narrow passage with small tables served by a few chairs, opening out a little to the rear where another bar can be found. There’s a nice mural on the wall near the stage but otherwise the decor is a little dull – just some bits of backlit wall trying to do their best to distract the eye, but otherwise a plain affair. It’s not the ideal space for live music, thanks to the narrow layout and in-the-way seating, but they put on plenty of shows here, with the Chemical Brothers, Adele, Florence and the Machine, Fatboy Slim, Jarvis Cocker and Arctic Monkeys being some of the bigger names to have played post-Heavenly’s involvement. Sadly, the venue has been under threat of closure in recent months, as a cocktail bar chain have made a lucrative offer to the freeholder, but a very successful crowdfunding campaign plus a series of benefit gigs has helped stop the sale going through and they have now almost raised the £150,000 needed to buy a stake in the leasehold, so the future looks a lot more secure now. Beer-wise, the four draught keg options of Heineken, Camden Hells, Camden Pale and Lagunitas IPA, all clocking in at over £5 a pint, with the latter costing more than £6 a pint. It goes without saying, there is no ale available and the bottled selection was no more inspiring than in your usual gig venue. The staff were all really nice and friendly though, so that was something. This place is really only worth checking out if you’re going to a gig here. The bar is small and expensive and doesn’t have enough memorabilia to warrant a pilgrimage in its own right. They quite often put on free shows here where you can catch some good bands on the cusp of breaking through to the mainstream, so I will normally keep an eye on their listings but make sure I do my drinking elsewhere before I arrive.