Sleek design and lush cocktails are a winning combo at this neighbourhood watering hole that feels somehow more West End than West Hampstead. Chris Dennis (late of Disrepute and Sovereign Loss whose closure was Brixton’s loss) is on drinks duty across its two rooms. Heads - a cool sea green see-and-be-seen lounge with a sheltered urban garden off - favours lighter recipes: Suze, bergamot and mandarin-laced Aperol Spritz; Floradora, the 1900s chorus girl’s racy revival made with gin raspberry and ginger ale; plus a selection of low- and no-alcohol lites and two-dozen dapper wines.
Tails - a soupy 1930s film noir dive - goes for down and dirty Chicago gangster glugs with dark souls (a Chivas 12 Brigadoon, or Wild Turkey rye, Spanish brandy, vermouth and Bénédictine stir Santa Maria, say), as well as a range of bad boy boilermakers such as Fortified Wall (Goose Island Honkers and Evan Williams Bourbon). A late o’clock licence and the Night Tube at West Hampstead station, opposite, make Heads + Tails an easily doable weekend destination.