LGBTQ cocktail bar Common Counter offers a welcome boost to east London’s queer scene
A lovingly curated cocktail menu coupled with a refreshingly diverse and energised crowd add up to a winning formula for this new queer Shoreditch hotspot.
By Will Stroude
Words: Will Stroude; Images: Common Counter (supplied)
If London has had to deal with a serious collective loss in LGBTQ venues over the last 15 years, then as a borough, Shoreditch has perhaps suffered most.
Since the closure of beloved community venues The Joiner’s Arms and The George and Dragon back in 2015, east London’s hipster haven has felt bereft of a queer focal point – but the opening of Glass House London last month has established a new gay centre of gravity.
The airy glass-fronted venue on the corner of Brick Lane and Bethnal Green Road is providing a template for what an LGBTQ community space should look like in 2022, containing bookshop café The Common Press, multimedia events space The Commons, and an ebullient bar (and soon-to-be restaurant), Common Counter.
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Common Counter is likely to serve as the beating heart of Glass House’s trailblazing collective enterprise (one certainly imagines it will need to from a financial perspective), and is already proving that ‘community-focused’ doesn’t stand counter to innovation and excellence when it comes to service.
With an eye-catching menu of cheeky house cocktails, mocktails and craft beer served alongside an ever-changing schedule of events including cabaret and voguing classes, Common Counter is already attracting a buzzing, refreshingly diverse crowd to its stylishly stripped-back interior.
The bar menu has been lovingly designed by mixologist Oliver Thomlinson as a celebration of queer history, with drinks like ‘Divine Intervention’; a sweetly sharp mix of Aperol, gin, grapefruit, summer berry syrup, egge white and bitters named after the late drag icon.
Other cocktail highlights include the tequila, vermouth and nitro cold brew-based ‘Dance of the Forty One’, named in honour of the men arrested in a 1901 Mexico City police raid on a party where attendees danced in ballgowns: Considered to mark the first time the topic of homosexuality entered mainstream Mexican media, the scandal was recently dramatised on the big screen in a 2020 Netflix film adaptation.
It’s joyous Easter Eggs such as this that make Common Counter at Glass House such a vital addition to London’s LGBTQ scene, and a commitment to using seasonal and responsibily-sourced produce only adds to its quietly confidently authenticity.
Make no mistake though, it’s Common Counter’s delicious execution and money-can’t-buy atmosphere that are sure to make it a queer mainstay in a post-lockdown London.
Common Counter at Glass House, 118 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 6DG, glasshouse.london/Common-Counter / @glasshouselondon