Soho eatery apparently doesn't rush into things

Even the most established institutions can change for the better, like when the once stuffy Sun relented in its Puritanism and started showing Jordan's rack on page 1. Now an 85 year-old restaurant's finally putting the booze up front: QV Bar.

Encircled with light brown leather banquettes and centered around a marble bartop laden with bespoke silver cocktail shakers and glasses, this elegant, wood-floored besottery is ensconced in the ground floor of the circa 1926 resto & members club Quo Vadis, Latin for "Where Are You Going" -- though if their marketing'd been Guinness-direct, it'd have been "You Are Going Here". Bottles run from Timmy Taylor's Landlord to an oak-noted Breton cider, while 'tails include classically made classics (Martinis are stirred, Bloodys "rolled") and newfangledness like the Johnny Black/ lemon/ honey / chamomile "Tea Trader Sour" and the rum/ sloe gin/ apricot/ lime "Millionaire #4" -- also a contestant on a blind-dating show starring wealthy men who haven't discovered the seductive power of yachts. Solid sustenance comes via bar-menu items like the QV Burger (w/ triple cooked chips), black pudding w/ a fried duck egg, salt cod fritters, and mustard/dill Dorset mussels, whose largeness is actually frustrating, as it intimidates you from making fun of their accent.

Starting Monday they'll be running a daily 5.30-6.30 "Oyster Hour" offering half a dozen pearl-factories, plus a glass of Champagne, all for a tenner, a Price so fetching, inviting friends to join you there will be your Daily Telegraph.