For a bar with such great press I was expecting alot. However, ther drinks were on the whole OK, but one was so hideous it should never have made it onto the menu. Using Calvados infused with licorice, it was so ridiculously overpowering that I can not imagine who would like it, and I like very strong flavours.

Style over substance.

Finally managed to check ECC Chinatown out after my mixologist sibling's recommendation. Cocktails smooth and sumptuous, surefire sixties sounds from the dj, beautiful surroundings but let down by the bravado of people who at a basic level pour liquids well into cold glasses. A smile would have been nice, pretentious sneering served with a dirty martini does not make for a pleasant evening. I'm sure the two poor guys who were asked to move from their seats to make way the quintet gloriouslysly sohoites would agree with me. Get some new staff and ECC Chinatown could legendary as opposed to the banal exercise in uber cool pretension it seems to be.

Went last night on a whim, in trepidation based on these reviews. It was great. Doorman was perfectly civil, woman at coat check greeted us with a big smile, barman was interested and responsive when my missus wasn't quite happy with her first drink, and he even topped up my glass of tap water without asking which was a nice touch. Cocktail list is packed with interesting ingredients and bold combinations. Room is q stylish and the DJ was playing a good set of US 50s and 60s stuff. Male:female ratio was about 30:70.

Lots of tables were reserved so a prior call is advised. Drinks took bloody ages but that's cocktail bars for you. We ended up ordering our drinks well before we'd finished our last one. And there were a couple of city wankers in, but... that's cocktail bars for you.

Overall, a great destination bar.

Way too much attitude - and that's just the reservation and door staff. Let me just preface this by saying that never have I ever felt so enraged with an establishment that I have bothered to write a review online to signal out such poor service. Well done ecc for being the first. I phoned ecc on a Friday to make a booking for 2 people that evening at 8pm. The staff member of the phone told that "i didn't need to make a booking and that entry at 8pm wouldn't be a problem". We arrived at the bar at 8.10pm and asked the door girl if we could enter. The door girl responded with a short and sharp - no. Words can’t communicate the look and tone with which the denial was given. There was no attempt at trying to explain why we couldn’t enter or that they were sorry entry was being denied. After a moment of being totally thrown off by the harsh treatment my partner explained that we had called earlier during the day to reserve a table at 8pm that evening but we were specifically told that no reservation was required and that entry at that time of evening would not pose a problem. Based on this information we had confidently decided to venture across town to try out the new bar. This is when the attitude was amped up and ecc broke out the absurd. The door girl then told us that “even if we had a reservation we would have been turned away because the bar was filled to capacity earlier in the evening and that they were turning Away bookings”. At this point I asked the door girl to clarify what she had just said – that if a reservation had been made, ecc doesn’t necessarily honour it. The door girl replied with another short and sharp: “tonight we have turned away bookings”. No apology was given for having messed us around with their shoddy advice or an opportunity to make it up to us on another occasion. It was just all so inhumane and stuck up.

Worst. Service. Ever. The pretentiousness of this place is unbelievable. At every turn – from the doorman who wouldn’t let me in (despite a reservation and my friends already being upstairs) because he was taking a personal phone call to the manager requiring me to check my coat because it’s ‘not that kind of establishment’. I was blown away that a bar with so little going for it has so much attitude.

Finally a bar with all the style, originality and buzz of Paris...in London! The owners are three Parisian guys who's bars in Paris (ECC Paris, Prescription and Curio) have been called the best in the city, if not some of the best in the world. Now we have one here. The decor is victorian speakeasy with a hint of chinatown thrown in. Classy and intimate with gorgeous brickwork, candles and woodwork. The cocktails are just to die for. The only glitch is the boys want to keep it exclusive, so there is no sign, just a very discrete, shabby looking door with a brass plaque outside saying ECC. If you can find it, you're in for a huge treat....

I was there for the opening and it was totally amazing! I already knew the sister bars in Paris, so thought I would check this one out while I was in town - and I was definitely not disappointed!! The decor was amazing, lots of attention to detail, the bar manager really charismatic, the cocktails were delicious (this was to be expected). I can't wait to visit again!!