Dirty Martini - Hanover Square

Last week, we were very sad to see a member of our merchandising department leave Hobbs for pastures new - its always sad when someone leaves, but if nothing else is the perfect excuse to pop to the ladies' for a 5 o clock nose-powder and head out for some drinks, gossip and all-round fun.

The chosen venue for our goodbye drinks was the new (opened in December, so I'm pretty slow off the mark!) Dirty Martini in Hanover Square, right opposite Vogue House. I've spent many a Friday night cocktail hour in their original bar in Covent Garden (which is tiny - they clearly never expected to be so popular - but it's totally worth being squashed and having to stand if it means getting your hands on one of their famous martinis) but had never visited this new, much larger, site.

One of the bar's two "snug" areas

Like the Covent Garden bar, the space is downstairs & away from daylight. Unlike their CG counterpart though, the bar is a huge area with numerous pockets of space - perfect for everything from group parties to private catch-ups. They even have small bunker-like areas, which we all thought resembled hugely glamorous tube carriages - if tube carriages came with cocktails and mood lighting!

On then to their biggest accomplishment - Happy Hour - from 4-10pm Monday - Thursday, and 4-8pm Friday to Saturday, all martinis, prosecco cocktails and bottles of wine are half price, plus thes £10 off all bottles of champagne - try to argue with that!

Apple & Cinnamon Martini - h-e-a-v-e-n

Martinis/prosecco cocktails work out at around £4.50 which is pretty fantastic indeed, and even more so once you've sampled their menu - their spiced apple martini is like a comforting winter apple pie in cocktail form, and their Hanover Fizz (Plymouth gin, Plymouth sloe gin, creme de mure & lemon juice all topped off with prosecco) is a definite way to let your hair down at the end of a hard day.

Cocktail fun times

The only problem, really, is that at this price, it's easy to try & sample them all - luckily I had a dinner to go to so wasn't able to exercise my [extemely weak] self control. As much as I didn't want to leave, I was grateful for the lack of a sore head in the morning - especially when some other girls came in a little worse for wear!