The Carrington

Once the de facto waiting room for Il Baretto across the road, The Carrington is now a destination in its own right. As with the Flinders, the Norfolk, and the Forresters, the irrepressible Jaime Wirth and James Miller have given this faded pub a lively, irreverent reboot. They've repositioned it as a laidback Basque pintxos bar, using decor that's equal parts geographic (Moorish tiles) and eccentric (miniature awnings cloned across one wall). The menu by Jamie Thomas (Avido, St John) is dude food with a Spanish accent: think calamari sliders and midnight Cuban sandwiches. Waitstaff bustle past with plates of morcilla-stuffed squid and jugs of Southern Comfort-spiked sangria. Good tapas options include potato-fennel tortilla and kingfish pastrami with fried bread. Skip the braised chickpeas, though: they were soupy and superfluously topped with saffron mayo. Brown sugar meringue, champagne jelly and passionfruit daiquiri sorbet make up the Carrington Mess, which isn't exactly Spanish, but nobody seems to mind.