Guilty By Association Reviewed

LAST WEEK I was hoodwinked.

Twitter murmurs unveiled a new ‘secret door’ in the Northern Quarter. It was a bar, and you had to find it. An unclear photo on their twitter @nqsecretdoor gave little away. I’d have to crawl the streets. Dig it out. How exciting.

#keepthesecret #hideandseek… It was all so achingly trendy. Generation Y 'digitally native' stuff.

Guilty By Association is the boxer with lined gloves, the doped horse, it should be a dead cert.

Having tracked it down I’ve no qualms about ruining the secret, because it’s an utterly crap one. The door leads through into the back of Dry Bar - one of NQ’s oldest and least charming bars - that’s it.

“So that’s it?” I ask the lone heavy manning the door by a Biffa bin at the back of Dry on smelly Spear Street.

“That’s it,” replies the heavy with a cheeky 'we’ve-had-you-son' grin.

“How shit,” says my companion. And there you have the world’s shortest ever review. Two words. Two syllables. Nail on the head.

Guilty By Association: not crap

The modern punt at the secret, hush-hush, speakeasy bar is growing tiresome, opening new bars where the main draw is how hard they are to find in the first place. Down chimneys, up trees, in Scunthorpe. Why should going out require a Sherpa?

Somewhere in London there's a real bar where you need a password to access a phone booth inside a fried chicken shop that'll take you down into the action, there you'll find Batman and Ernst Stavro Blofeld having a shandy.

It’s enough to drive you to Timmy Taylors in the Crown & Anchor for the rest of your days.

So when Guilty By Association opened in Northern Quarter last weekend with no pretence, no parade, no secret location we wept with relief. It even had a sign outside. A small one, but a sign nonetheless.

Guilty

Ok so the name of the bar is too long, but the new offering from restaurateur Steve Pilling of Damson and Mark Whyte of Liquorice bar is a straight-up subterranean bar opened sotto voce on Stevenson Square.

This is a square so reinvigorated by food and drink openings in the last couple of years that the bubbling heart of the city's creative and cultural centre is slowly creeping east, pulled by yet more openings Tariff Street way.

They’ve gone for the easy wins at Guilty. Metal, wood, leather, concrete, brick, pillars and scuffed industrial impedimenta. In an alcove, an AC/DC pinball machine flashes and rattles for attention by a ragtag foosball table. Car seats huddled around a huge polished wooden cable reel are novel and deceptively comfy.

The thing that strikes you though is how generous the space is. We count room for at least 100 bottoms, and standing space for another 100. This is good news for Stevenson Square. With room to breathe, a late licence and DJs in the offing, Guilty will be a welcome alternative to Hula across the way. The late-night Northern Quarter favourite has started to fall out of favour: busy, stuffy and overly fussy on entry – bring two male pals and you’re shafted sunshine.

Car seats, pinball, foosball

The bar staff at Guilty look as though they’ve been lifted from a Levis advert. All denim shirts, smiles and spunk. There’s the hip hirsute one, the sexy blonde girl, the cool black guy, the pony-tailed American surfer and the drinks nerd, all keen as a kipper to take your order. But then they would be - I’m one of only three customers in here.

Still, it’s an hour before England vs Italy kicks-off in the World Cup and the paint has barely dried on the walls. This place will pick-up, and pick-up quickly. There's at least seven bars within freekick distance, another once the guys from NQ success story, Kosmonaut, open their new bar-cum-diner PLY upstairs - sometime in July to August.

Guilty has a fantastic selection of beer. There's four on draught (when the pumps start working): Guilty's own Lager, Amstel, Warsteiner and an interesting looking Thwaites 13 Guns IPA (from £3.80 a pint). The fridges are choc full of hops, with punk Scottish brewsters Brew Dog and Sweden's new kid, Brutal Brewing, leading out front. A recommended Chicago-brewed Goose Island IPA takes podium, a San Francisco Anchor Steam Beer pulls up a close second.

Still, paying over £4 for a bottle never feels quite right.

What's good for the gander...

Cookie Monster & Rum Sazerac

On to the meat of the drinks menu we have 'The Associates', a list of thirteen bouncy new cocktails, alongside five 'Hardhitters', the tried and tested old-timers (all from £6.50).

A Cookie Monster Mess (£6.50) from 'The Associates' is a touch disappointing. Not in body, the combination of oreo infused bourbon, chocolate liqueur, syrup and espresso is sweet, cool and katana sharp. It's just so decidedly unmessy, and at core an Espresso Martini with a biscuit. Spade a spade.

A Rum Sazerac (£7.50) from the 'Hardhitters' though was a belter. This mix of Diplimatico rum, ginger liqueur, vanilla and bitters topped with an Absinthe spray will put hairs on your knuckles and kiss you to bed. A chair toppler.

Guilty By Association is the boxer with lined gloves, the doped horse, it should be a dead cert. A well-designed and generous space located in a flourishing and foot-heavy Northern Quarter square, backed by a proven team and manned by eager beavers serving fine drinks in a thirsty, thirsty city. A guilty pleasure.

All scored Confidential reviews are impartial and paid for by the magazine. 

Guilty booths

@David8Blake

Guilty By Association, Stevenson Square, Northern Quarter, M1 1FB

Open seven nights a week from 4pm till late. @GuiltyBA1

Rating: 16/20 Straight-up, handsome and unforced NQ bar with room to breathe and solid backing.

(please read the scoring system in the box below, venues are rated against the best examples of their kind) 

Drinks: 4/5 Healthy choice, not overly complicated
Service: 4/5 Keen as a kipper
Ambience: 4/5 It'll pick up
Concept: 4/5 Spacious and unfussy