hoxton pony, Shoreditch, London

We’ve been to The Hoxton Pony a couple of times now. First time was for a private party on a Sunday night - the bar was (as you’d imagine on a Sunday night!) quiet, but it meant we basically had the place to ourselves and could enjoy the DJ set our friends were playing that evening.

As previous reviewers quite rightly point out, the decor is very much a mix of trendy Shoreditch/Hoxton bar with lots of black and red padded stools and polished tables, but for me this place is a little bit different to the “tryin’ to hard” bars which have come and gone in the area in recent years. The Hoxton Pony is “friendly, welcoming and warm” - YES, that’s right - a trendy bar in Curtain Road which actually doesn’t charge the earth if you get there at a reasonable time and with door staff who will go out of there way to tell you who the DJ is that evening and what parties they have booked.

The Hoxton Pony may look like “all the other “trying to hard” bars”, but trust me, go along with an open mind, enjoy the eclectic mix of tunes played on a Sat (or indeed Sun night) and enjoy the bottled beers and absolutely gorgeous alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails. Priced between £3-7 is pretty much the price you’d pay anywhere in London now for decent cocktails, so if you’re off out for a night to party, accept it, enjoy them and dance until the wee hours (oh and don’t forget to take lots of pics of your friends dancing under the strip lights on the dance floor - the effects you can get are cool man! ;) )

Cocktails are so expensive that I could only afford one drink and for sure not going back. This is Shoreditch not Essex, thought I was in charlie chans!!

The Hoxton Pony is very popular on weekends. It is spread out over 2 floors. The top area is mainly the bar area and there are a few tables. This area gets rather rammed as people stand around chatting. Downstairs is the dance floor. The music is pretty cheesy, fun classics to dance to with your mates, but after a few hours here you may want to move somewhere else in search of some better beats.

Curtain Road very rarely has its curtains drawn back, when the freaks come out and Shoreditch triangulates the waves of luminous afro’s and painfully skinny jeans. Yes good sir, I can see which side of the seam you hang and no it ain’t 'Long and Flexy’!

So here we have another addition to the bar brat pack of Ditchside drinking establishments with the usual array of kitsch furnishings and toilet doors that don’t quite close properly. A door a little like the swinging saloon doors in your local kebab shop, just cleaner but no less likely to butt you in the head whilst making a swift getaway. Plus, rainbow neon lighting. One simple question: why? I’m all about softer lighting in the bogs to make my mascara appear marginally less scuppered, but if I wanted to shoot heroin surely I’d try Hoxton Square instead, guaranteed attention from limp legged boys.

Anyways, I digress. Is the Hoxton Pony, really a lot of old Pony? Well when I popped down as part of the network of venues participating at the Shoreditch Shuffle festival, there was enough space to breathe and a mischievous clock dial strobe above the stage had me enthralled for hours. My friends were very embarrassed as I followed the beams, nodding nonchalantly at regular intervals. However, with the crush to the bar happily absent, I grabbed a scrumptious cocktail. The Deep Thinker £7.50(rocks) A powerful cocktail, with a citrus punch has great depth of spices with strong notes of vanilla. Fresh lime, Demerara sugar, coriander and Sailor Jerry’s spiced rum <<<- straight from their menu but I couldn’t really do a better job than this, highly original and fizzed the tongue nicely.

Apparently 'flavour profile is given prominence, with every one of the 200 plus spirits’. This presumably means that the management chooses the booze and adjudicates what’s yummy. As for the food selection, they don’t have food in the East End, they only have 'Grub’. In summary, not the most innovative bar design in the area, but good for an 'Ice Rink’ for that true 'flavour prominence’. And Girls Aloud seem pretty hot on Hoxton too!

Creative and extensive cocktail menu - which is exactly what you’d expect bearing in mind its owner and the music is spot on with a good roster of DJs and different sounds depending on the day. However this place is way too poncey on a weekend, drawing a shirt and shoe crowd that jars with the quirky side of Shoreditch. Probably more chilled out - and interesting - on a week night.