The Last Tuesday Society
Cocktails, Scorpion tails and a Tales of the weird and wonderful
11 Mare Street London E8 4RP
££
The Last Tuesday Society is a bar come museum come wonderland which offers an original and pretty disturbing haven for all the self confessed freaks out there to relax, socialise and discover.
TLTS was founded in 1873 at Harvard by William James and was brought to London in 2006 by the Chancellor Viktor Wynd & the Provost David Piper. On the website, it claims that the society is dedicated to subverting life, the universe and everything bored of life and the world it seeks around it. Through this, it seeks to create a new world filled with beauty, wonder and imagination... However, this is not the neverland Peter Pan dreams of, nor the fantasmical Oz Dorothy is desperate to get to. The vibe is less fairytale, more nightmarish, less fields of poppies and more a field of thorns.
Upon entering, you are greeted with a dimly lit cocktail bar. Looking up, the ceiling has hanging creatures of all kinds and there is a vast array of taxidermy animals, including a half bodied lioness and the largest bull's heads you could imagine. Like the decor, the cocktail choices are equally as unconventional - named with words such as 'witches', 'magick', 'freak' and 'voodoo', they seem equally as untrustworthy as that drink you accepted off a very persistent stranger last Friday night.
The food list complies with themes of shock and horror, dishing up plates such as the Edible Insect Platter, Red Headed Centipedes and Chocolate Covered Superworms. Only the brave will step inside this place, only the bravest will go all the way and dine here. Curiosity draws you in, Director's Allison and Rhys wanted to bring a vision of New York's speakeasy culture to the heart of Hackney. The basic jist is underground culture, alternative nightlife and generally feeling like you've arrived somewhere quite unlike anywhere you've been before. Allison and Rhys - you succeed.
Downstairs from the bar there is the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, admission tickets are £5, which includes a guidebook and a cup of tea. The Museum itself is incredibly tight - small walkways lead you around display cases filled with anything from a mummified erect penis, to a lifesize cake of a dead person. There's a lot of skulls, and yet more preserved animals, as well as books on how to perform anal sex correctly and old freaky porcelain dolls. Any attempt to pick out a running theme here is doomed to failure, but that's kind of the beauty of it all.
The Last Tuesday Society also holds Charity Parties, Literary Salons and Taxidermy classes. You can even hire a room downstairs in the museum for corporate meetings (one to keep in mind next time my boss asks me to book something snazzy for our clients). My suggestion is ditch the afternoon tea plan, and head over to Hackney for some mystical cocktails and a plate of scorpions (for the record, they taste like hairspray.)
OVERALL RATING: ****
http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/
