An expensive little Jewel

I occasionally find reason to complain about overpricing on these pages - a complaint hard to make in a bar or restaurant where prices should be published and where we have the option of leaving without further ado.

You'd be pleasantly surprised how often proprietors call me after the publication of a review to redress the situation. 'Ok, it's a fair cop, we're reducing the price of this, that and the other,' is a common response.

But other complaints - quality of food and drink, service problems etc - need to be levelled in situ so that the management has an opportunity to redress the situation on what might be an untypically wobbly day.

The prices at Covent Garden's new Jewel bar, younger sibling of Jewel near Piccadilly Circus, are touching on the high side of reasonable with £7 your average price for a cocktail, and a whopping £1.90 for a half-pint of Kronenbourg or Foster's.

Jewel's owners will argue that this is the centre of Covent Garden and that the rent and rates are stratospherically high. They might be right. They'll also argue that there's the cost of the interior design to recoup, and with this they'd definitely be right.

The inside of Jewel has been extensively refurbished since its days as the Spot bar and nightclub, with each of its four independent areas sporting a unique design.

There's the main Jewel Bar on the ground floor, elegantly adorned with shimmering chandeliers; Bar Blanca, a whitewalled, white-furnished room with white wax dripping from wall-hung candelabra; the Jewel Mezzanine bar with its high ceilings and attractive bar-service area; and Rouge Noir, a dark, decadent basement den with Oriental influences in the furnishings.

A burly chap was guarding the door when I visited on a summery, early-September evening and, judging by the clientele inside, his remit must have been only to allow access to pertbottomed, pre-cellulite babes and flatstomached boys with full heads of hair. How I managed to get in is anybody's guess, but I do have years of experience in breezing past bouncers.

There isn't much mixing or shaking going on when bar staff assemble the drinks - you can't make a Caipirinha or a Mojito without muddling the ingredients together with a pestle - which means the resulting cocktails aren't as balanced or flavoursome as they should be.

Table service was not offered on any of my visits, which meant I had to spend much of the evening queuing up at the bar, while the highly opportunistic, youthful atmosphere continued unabated behind me.