Heading for Hawaii in SE11

This review was published in May 2002

Now, I've been to Hawaii and I certainly don't remember it being anything like this. South London Pacific - from the Club Montepulciano crew - is a great, screaming temple to all things Hawaiian kitsch, replete with flashing pineapples, totemic Gods, fruity cocktails served up in tiki mugs and bamboo screens.

Not that there's any fear of intimacy, mind. The music's loud, the decor's louder and the vibe is loosely-reined Polynesian hedonism.

On the Saturday night we visited there was a £4 cover-charge for the Elvis entertainment - a small man, modelled on the latter-years-King with a broad Catalan accent and a Tango tan - but the damnedest thing is, we would have happily paid more. South London Pacific has that effect: the goodwill and the bad taste are so contagious you'll forgive them just about anything.

Cocktails (at around a fiver a throw) proved a bit of a lottery. Despite a well thought-out list of interesting twists such as Noa Noa's mojito, with Angostura bitters and some certifiable combos (Bahama Mama's light, gold and dark rum with orange and pineapple juice, sours and grenadine), the alchemy and punch of the drinks seemed to depend randomly on bartender, traffic and how menacing your bar presence was.

After fighting through mountains of ice to unearth an agreeably smooth but slightly unchallenging Bahama Mama, offset by suspiciously carton-tasting juice, we decided to try the same cocktail but this time mixed by another bartender. The next thing we saw was the bar's underside.

But, you don't go there for the artistry of the drinks or the music. Greeting the dawn to 'I'm all shook-up' beside a neon pineapple, amid a generous-hearted crowd, who could be bitter? Still, I'm biased. I caught Elvis's sweat-streaked towel.

South London Pacific
340 Kennington Road, SE11 4LD