Ringside, E2

A long narrow room with some modern art on the wall. For a supposed Czech bar the list of beers was awful, just the usual stagers you can find anywhere else though there were more spirits than a series of Most Haunted. My Budvar Dark was crap - tart and not good enough…I’d have thought the two central European (Czech?) lads behind the bar would have a bit more pride in what they were doing. No other customers, hardly surprising. Waste of time all round - don’t be tempted by the theme, it’s just a rip-off.

As the name suggests, this is a Czech themed bar in the heart of trendy Shoreditch. The bar is a small single room, shop conversion with bare floorboards and a short servery in the rear left corner. The narrow room is filled with some rickety chairs that feel like they might collapse at any second, and high button backed armchairs and chesterfield sofas. Modern art prints line the walls, seemingly from local artists with some available for purchase, which gives the place a very hip look but fails to convey any sort of Czech style or theme. Music played throughout our stay and conversation was difficult with few soft furnishings to dampen the sound which echoed through the small room. There are around twenty Czech beers available, either in keg or bottled form. The cheapest is Budvar at £3.90 but prices go up to around a fiver for some of the more obscure names. We ended up with bottles of Staropramen, which were on special offer at £10 for four bottles. There was a cocktail menu on the table, but when one of our party tried to order one, they were told that these are only available from their sister pub in Angel. This is quite a decent idea for a bar and will be a big draw to fans of Czech pilsner style beers, but I thought the place missed a trick by not making more of the Czech/Prague theme, as in reality, we could have been sat in any hipster bar in this part of town. Not sure I’d return, but i might check out their other bar to see how it compares.