Come drink number two and we're ready to venture downstairs to the dance floor. With a bar on one side, spectacular disco lights on the other and the DJ booth at the far end, it's an impressive space that's already seeing serious action.
In front of us a girl is getting lifted up by a succession of partareners to touch the ceiling, Dirty Dancingstyle, while the dapper-looking Justin Robertson plays bass-heavy house to an enthusiastic crowd thronging round him.
After working up a sweat, we take a break upstairs where I chat to Joy, a make-up artist who's come here to hear Bones, an East London DJ hero since his days running a Sunday night club, Machine at On The Rocks. "It's a good night for girls here," she reckons, "because it's wall-to-wall with great-looking guys."
And indeed, from the looks of it later, she may well have bagged herself one. The girls a good-looking bunch too and are dressed up to party - there's plenty of chattingup and flirting going on.
Bones takes over for a set of dirty house music. Although the sound system isn't being tested to anywhere near the levels we imagine it can go, he has the place rocking till Guy Williams, until recently a Sunday night resident at Fabric, takes over for a final hour of more minimal sounds.
The crowd thins out by 3am but the arrival of staff from neighbouring Brazilian bar Favela Chic adds some fresh energy to the proceedings.
Stephan, a chef, tells us it's great there's a new late-night venue where he can have a drink and a dance at the end of his night.
We're still there when the lights come up at 4am, which is always a good sign.
Far from being just another bar, East Village is exactly the kind of intimate club that London needs more of - maybe the developer's wrecking ball has an upside after all.
East Village, 89 Great Eastern Street, EC2. Opening times and prices vary. Black Rabbit, tonight, The Westbury, 34 Kilburn High Road, NW6, 6pm - 3am, £5 before 9pm, £10 after.
