Janets Bar, South Kensington

If you're looking for a bar to recommend to someone you don't like - where the staff are rude, the cocktails really don't get much worse and prices are extortionate, this is your place.

I've travelled a decent amount, done my fair share of drinking and eating out in a fair few countries and I've never written a review online, but this place resulted in enough firsts that I figured it was time to pop that cherry too and share them.

* Before this, never had I been to a bar where the staff take payment before they've even checked if they have what you want, let alone making it.

* Before this, never had I been to a dive bar where the drink prices were so disproportionately high when compared to the surroundings, quality of service and quality of beverages - �4.75 for a 275ml bottle of kronenbourg (yes 275ml) and �10 for a mojito in a small tumbler which tasted like sweetened carbonated water and the lime wasn't fresh to put it politely.

* Before this, never had I been approached by member of bar staff to ask if I knew there was a �3 minimum charge because I didn't have a drink.

I had been there not 10 minutes and was stood chatting amongst 4 other friends who all had drinks and had another friend at the bar buying me a drink. When I told the bar maid the latter she replied "oh really, who?!" Left speechless I went to find my friend queueing at the bar to say "forget the drinks we're leaving". At that point I worked out why they take your money first.

When I first walked in to this place I was perplexed by the hundreds of photos plastered all over the walls of people having fun. It felt like a poor mans facebook photo collection, all too personal for a public space filled with strangers but "hey ho", I thought "each to their own". Now I see that like a person with a complex about the quality of their social life, this place has to prove people have a good time there. If they do it's certainly not because of the service, prices, decor or quality of cocktails.

I can only assume the reason people come here is the same reason we did - it's the only bar, within walking distance, open at that time. It's full of tourists who are staying in a hotel nearby (of which there are many) and haven't yet been in the wonderful city of London long enough to know better.

13 Dec 2011 13:54