The walls of 17 Mercer Street used to be covered in red leather. That was the Crazy Bear, a Covent Garden basement that understood the 2000s perfectly and never quite left them. Turning it into something resembling a normal tavern took a lot of work. Since 5 February 2026 it has been Cato, and the leather has been replaced by dark wood, globe lights and candles.
The name is the first thing to know. Cato Alexander began life enslaved in New York, gained his freedom in 1799, and went on to run a Harlem inn famed for carriage races, curried oysters and mint juleps. Cocktail historians call him America's first celebrity bartender. London has named bars after worse.
“Cato Alexander would recognise the drink and be baffled by the hydroponics.”
The people
Angelos Bafas is the bartender's bartender of the pairing. He wrote menus at Nipperkin, Nijū, HUMO and Kioku by Endo during his time with Creative Restaurant Group, and left to build this. His partners are Aiste Bart and Andrew Taylor of Bart & Taylor, the group behind Mr Fox and Fern, who worked on the site for three years. Yaw Asante supports on drinks development. Taylor designed the interiors, and the dot paintings of Noj Barker hang on both floors, echoing the colour-led menu below.
Upstairs: the House of Julep
Think New York tavern: dark walnut panelling, an aged zinc bar top, soft residential light. The julep arrives in a frosted metal cup, the mint grown in-house. The London Mint Julep is built on bourbon with foraged elderflower liqueur, bitters and golden syrup, and the Japanese Smash, a shiso-leaf drink on shochu and yuzu sake, is a standout. A Mustard Sour, an Apple and Gooseberry Daiquiri and a Rhubarb Paloma are the spun classics. Food keeps pace: fried curried oysters with gooseberry mayonnaise, which are strongly recommended, wild mushroom tostadas, popcorn fried chicken with a spiced apricot sauce, and Cobble Lane charcuterie.
Order a julep first, with the oysters. Cato Alexander would recognise the drink and be baffled by the hydroponics.
Downstairs: drinking in colour
The basement is where the experiments live. Its opening menu, Colour Has Flavour, is built on synaesthesia: drinks sorted into colour chapters and named after their main ingredients, with every one of them grown or made in Britain. Brown pairs Scotch with brown vermouth, smoked Cornish tea, fermented wild mushrooms and a foraged medlar and mushroom spirit. Green mixes dry vermouth and gooseberry brine with pod pea vodka, Norfolk shiso and a South Devon jalapeño liqueur, a Margarita if you squint and a vegetable patch if you do not. Yellow combines chamomile spirit, yellow jun, sweet clover and dried meadowsweet. There is also the Elverflower and Cheese, a gin and vodka drink with elderflower mead and a blend of British cheeses, which tells you how far down the rabbit hole the menu goes.
The velvet booths were made in Lithuania, Bart's home country, and a small Study off to one side doubles as a lab and masterclass room. Casual by Tayēr, a pop-up from the team behind Tayēr + Elementary, ran there through the summer.
The hedge
The basement is more of a destination than the julep room upstairs, though the signature julep is best as a summer drink, even if Bafas insists it works year round. Expect a pre-theatre and post-work crowd upstairs, and people who like to be told where their gooseberry came from below.
One floor for mint, one for colour theory, and a side room for homework. The building that once wore red leather now has a reading list.
- The vibe
- Walnut-panelled New York tavern upstairs; a more cerebral, velvet-booth basement below.
- The food
- Fried curried oysters, mushroom tostadas, popcorn chicken, Cobble Lane charcuterie.
- The drink
- A julep upstairs; Colour Has Flavour downstairs, every ingredient British.
- A tip
- Walk into the House of Julep; book the basement through the website.
