51 Lambs Conduit Street,
London,
WC1N 3NB

0872 148 0436

Note: Calls cost 10p per min plus network extras.

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Whatever happened to all the wine bars? Proper wine bars, that only serve wine? Most of them disappeared along with big hair and waistcoats for women.

So walking into Vats is like entering another, pre-Brit pop, dimension - the principle characteristic of this dimension being that it doesn’t give a stuff about being cool.

What Vats does give several stuffs about is… well, wine. Glancing at the shortened wine-list is enough to make you feel woozy; I have a feeling that contemplating the entire menu of over 100 wines would have you calling for a stomach pump. The range is simply superb, and incorporates a good many reasonable prices – house wine for £12.95, champagne for £29.95, and everything in between.

Attached is a small restaurant serving an inspiring array of foodstuffs: much more varied and interesting fare than you'd expect in a bar that's all about wine. Here too, though, there's something refreshingly old-school going on – everything looks so filling, so seasoned and so comforting.

And the look of the bar heightens one's sudden nostalgia for a time before minimalism. Trimmed by pine-green paintwork, the main bar's walls are clad in cream-painted wooden boards. An original Edwardian fireplace, fancy light fittings, a large mirror and low-key lighting create an ambience of unutterable cosiness.

Behind this room is a reading desk holding heavy tomes on the world of wine, a wood-panelled chamber in which to read the paper, and then the muraled, French-bistro-style restaurant.

The master-stroke, though, is the eighties soundtrack. Debbie Harry, Kim Wilde and Siouxie and the Banshees accompanied my visit, and I enjoyed them all.

The fact that Vats probably just hasn't been refurbished since it opened isn't the point. In fact, maybe it takes more guts to withstand London's changing fads than to follow or create them. In any case, the naïve charm, modest prices and impressive cellar here are attracting a faithful following of weekday drinkers (it's closed at weekends). I heart 1985!