Post #15280 by theandrewssister on Tue, Dec 3, 2002 3:40 AM

Hi guys - been off-message for a while but am slowly returning to life. For Down! to call itself a tiki bar is a blatant abuse of the Trades Descriptions Act -- plus it is, or was, hardly ever open. It is the downstairs bit of an anonymous bar/restaurant in Islington. It is attractively, but blandly, decorated with bamboo wallpaper in approved cod-Seventies styling -- no actual Tiki accoutrements whatsoever that I recall when I went there. Plus, they only open at the weekend and (of course) play mostly hip-hop -- no lounge/exotica etc. whatsoever (confirmed by the owner, who had never heard of exotica and spat on the idea of lounge. Seems he doesn't know his Islington very well...). So NATURALLY the advertising is smothered in Lono and the like. Tchah! Seems that what's "cool" these days is the IDEA of tiki. The tiki story in London, as far as I am aware, is Trader Vic's and South London Pacific and that's your lot.