Leopard changes its spots

There was a time when huge warehouse-style venues were de rigueur in London's drinking circles. It was a case of the bigger the better back in the Nineties, but those were the days when the brash were flash with their cash.

When not spending his time practising to be a boy racer, Howard Spooner (or Spoward Hooner, as he was undoubtedly called at school) was something of a player way back then.

He had his hand in both the Clapham Grand and the Hammersmith Palais, and in 1997 went on to open the momentarily successful Leopard Lounge in a warehouse behind Fulham Broadway station, now a part of the new Broadway retail and entertainment complex.

Four years after the untimely demise of this colossal venue in 2000, it has now re-emerged (or changed its spots, perhaps) in considerably smaller premises in deepest Fulham.

Two interconnecting retail units now make up a non-smoking cafe-bar for sandwiches and snacks in one section, and a full bar offering in the other. Both have a clinically clean modern look, with brown leather furnishings and are decorated in hues of brown and ochre. Leopard skin prints adorn the walls.

From the cafe-bar, which opens at 8am for a full English or continental breakfast, a plasma screen relays the proceedings from the crèche in the basement where nippers can be deposited for around £3 per hour. A crèche? Yes indeedy. Mister Spooner seems to have become every inch the family man since the naughty Nineties.

The good news is that the crèche is transformed into a late-night bar on Thursday to Sunday evenings. The £5 admission fee after 9pm includes a small platter of Thai food (presumably a licensing requirement) and the place stays open until midnight.

Drinks in the bar include draught Guinness, John Smith's smoothpour, Fosters and Kronenbourg - Beck's is the only bottled beer. A new vodka, 42 Below, from the great vodka-producing nation of New Zealand (yeah, right) has an intent presence behind the bar. The rest of the spirit collection is relatively mainstream stuff.

It's been some considerable time since I've encountered such an unimaginative wine list but, and only if needs must, a Domaine Jean Collet Chablis at £22 should serve the purpose. Interestingly, the Leopard Lounge is also an outlet for Boizel champagne, which very few people outside of a prison cell would thank you for.

Drinks don't seem to be the point of this place, just as they weren't in the warehouses of old when we considered it a bit of a result to come across a can of cider served from a wheelie bin filled with ice.

The point, then, of this 21st-century all-things-toall-people venue is all but lost on me (it's not even any fun) and it will presumably be lost on every Fulhamite who doesn't have a buggy to push all day.

Spooner might argue that the fun haunts of yesteryear needed to grow up. I would argue that fun should never be taken off the menu. Leopards, it seems, don't actually change their spots, they merely disguise them as something more boring.

Leopard Lounge
660 Fulham Road, Fulham, SW6 5RX