The Finborough Theatre has long been revered as one of London's top fringe venues, while the bar below has tended to merely be a handy place for interval drinks. The Finborough Wine Cafe has changed all that by offering fabulous wines in a relaxed and friendly environment.

The Venue
Finborough Road is the kind of street you have probably driven down a hundred times but never actually had cause to walk down. Minutes from the Earl’s Court exhibition centre and tube station, it is a largely residential road, away from the popular bars and restaurants of nearby Fulham and Chelsea. Thanks to the log fire and warm lighting within, a warm glow spills out onto the pavement making it impossible for passers-by to ignore its allure.

The refurbishment (completed three months ago) included the transformation of what used to be a rehearsal space into a smart tasting room complete with row upon neat row of wines and long tables.

The bar itself is a classy mixture of bare brick, cream walls and wooden flooring while the leather sofas and wooden tables and chairs look stylish and brand new. This is a bar any West End theatre charging £50 a ticket would be proud of, let alone a small fringe venue just outside the congestion zone.

The Atmosphere
This being a theatre bar, there is the inevitable rush pre-and-post performance, and for the manic fifteen minutes during the interval. Outside of these times there is an almost serene feel to proceedings and the gentility of the staff goes a long way to achieving this. The Australian owner and the bar's South African manager have run a similar venture in Oxford for several years and while they are both hugely knowledgeable about the wines they source, they are equally as enthusiastic about the customer experience. To this end there is a daily happy hour and the cafe is open from 8am serving coffee and pastries.

The Food
There is no kitchen here but the simple menu offers a choice of baguettes, delicious cheese and cold meat platters and the option to fetch a pizza from the establishment next door for a nominal 'forkage' of £2. Taking this into account, it's frankly amazing anyone ever leaves the Finborough Wine Cafe.

The Drink
What the management of this bar don't know about wine is almost certainly not worth knowing. They are passionate about it and have carefully tried, tested and selected each of the fifty wines, all of which are available to take home too. Thirty of these are available by the glass and during happy hour you can have a glass for as little as £3.50. House wines start at £18.95 a bottle and, at the top end, a Domaine de Chevalier 2000 will set you back £69.95. Prices here are competitive and it's no wonder the wine tasting room downstairs is proving to be such a draw for large parties.

The real selling point is the wine tasting package. For £8 you can choose twelve wines to sample - anything from a Ackerman Laurance sparkling rose to the lesser known Lazy Monkey Cabernet Sauvignon, a red wine from California that’s only available in the UK at Finborough.

The Last Word
It's not every day you discover a lovely personable place like The Finborough. The management have put their heart and soul into bringing their passion for wine to a wider audience and they have succeeded without sacrificing value for money or character. While it won't do the theatre ticket sales any good by saying so, it is thoroughly recommended that you arrive early and settle in for the duration.

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