A trip to London is not half as exciting as it used to be, you'll hear people say. Shopping in Dublin is now almost as productive and a lot more pleasant. Our restaurant scene has pretty well caught up, too. But there's one thing London has quietly perfected over the past decade or so which, here, is barely even at the clumsy beginner stage. A wine-bar culture.
With wine consumption doubling since 1990 and wine knowledge growing at a frenetic rate, Irish tongues are hanging out for a cool alternative to the average smoke-choked pub with its vinous poison by the glass or, if you're lucky, a smattering of quarter bottles. While London has wine bars beyond number, one group has edged ahead, offering 38 wines by the glass in 12 calm, designer-smart locations. Corney & Barrow, pukka fine wine merchants with over 200 years of trading to their name and three royal warrants on their labels, show how it can be done.
If these bars with their clever formula - vast choice of wines, nod at beers and spirits (especially vodka cocktails), light, modern food and crisp interior design - aren't as well known among Irish wine fans as you might expect, it is probably because of where they are. Ten are in the City, Corney & Barrow's base since 1780; one in Canary Wharf nearby. Only last August did they arrive in the West End, opening the wine bar that is now their flagship in St Martin's Lane.
The reaction has been fast and, well, as bubbly as the atmosphere must be on a busy evening in the basement champagne bar (14 champagnes on offer, Delamotte and Billecart-Salmon by the glass). "It will be the success story of the decade," said the Evening Standard. "To be treasured. . . estimable wines and champagnes by the glass," purred Fay Maschler in ES magazine. "Nothing short of a revolution - a wine bar for the '90s and beyond," Time Out applauded. C&B, whose dynamic young management team opened three wine bars last year alone, aren't sitting still to bask in the afterglow of this sudden acclaim. "We'll definitely expand further in the West End," says publicist Amanda Biddle who, having run a wine bar of her own and worked for Laurent-Perrier for seven years, has in instinctive feel for what Corney & Barrow are at. What about other cities? "Yes, probably - and perhaps other countries, too." Ireland? She and C&B manager Sarah Heward were in Dublin a month or two ago, she admits. "We were invited by a friend - we didn't go there specifically to suss out the market, but we couldn't help it." They noticed, folks, that despite its buzzy cosmopolitanism, our capital is a wine bar Sahara.
All the more reason to check out the Corney & Barrow phenomenon in London. Easiest for most visitors to get to is the bar at the Trafalgar Square end of St Martin's Lane. On three floors in the fine old shell of a former bank, it's a stylish show space for contemporary design trends: stainless steel, black granite, limestone, woods like teak and wenge. Upstairs is a brass eyrie with a Mediterranean menu; downstairs the clubby hideaway of the champagne bar. But it is in the wine bar proper, at street level, that the cornerstones of the C&B approach are clearly displayed. You'll find a list of about 60 wines from all over the world, at prices ranging from £10.50 for C&B's ownlabel red and white to £34.95 for Simi California Chardonnay. More than half of these are available not just by the glass but in two glass sizes.
Champagne is important here, too. And, to help customers cling to sobriety as best they can, there's a menu of tasty bar bites along tapas lines - things like salmon rillettes, grilled baby artichokes with proscuitto, chilli fried squid with aoili. You can choose an individual portion (£2.75-£3.50) or share a mixed selection (from £8.50 for two people to £18.75 for five).
Curious to see a couple of C&B variations, I whizzed over to the East End in the late afternoon - the time when City suits, at their desks since 7.30 a.m., abandon high finance for a drink. Bankers, both male and female, go to Corney & Barrow at Old Broad Street - a big, airy, brand new bar right next to the spot where the firm operated for centuries. Mahogany from the original building survives only in the lavatory seats and the cigar humidor.
Lorcan Cribbin from Portarlington, who runs the kitchen at Lloyds in Dublin, cooked for the old Corney & Barrow at Old Broad Street before going on to polish his CV at L'Escargot, Ransome's Dock and The Ivy. "It was a great company to work for - young, relaxed and very pleasant," he reports. His brother Gavin is currently a chef with C&B in Jewry Street, the insurance hub of the City.
Here, the heavily male clientele reflects proximity to that other Lloyd's - an institution not widely associated with womanpower. The Jewry Street C&B is in a cosy brick-lined basement - very different from the other two in atmosphere. But the basics are the same. Big glass jugs of fruit juice on the counter. A chilled Methuselah of champagne at the ready in case a thirsty party should arrive. Sensible three-quarter height seating so that, when it's crowded with a lot of people standing, they're not bent double trying to converse with those on chairs.
By 6.30 on a Tuesday evening bottles of wine and platters of bar bites are whizzing on to tables as if the fast-forward button had been pressed. Champagne flutes are emptying in minutes as the labyrinthine space fills up and the conversational hum becomes a roar. Wait a minute. Isn't Britain meant to be in the early grip of a recession? "There was a bit of a wobble around last October,' Amanda Biddle admits. "But Christmas was very good, January and February were quiet as they always are, March was incredibly busy because of the burst of fine weather, and it's been that way ever since."
There's an extra buzz about the City these days - new restaurants like Conran's Coq d'Argent, new shops like Harvey Nichols. That will doubtless mean extra customers for C&B - especially in the summer when the outdoor terraces at some of their premises are a prime attraction. If you fly into London City airport - a toy-sized, blissfully timesaving place that puts Heathrow and Gatwick to shame - remember there's a wine bar worth drinking in, only a short cab ride away.
C&B - where it's at: 116 St Martin's Lane, WC2, (tel 0171 655 98000); Old Broad Street, EC2, (tel 0171 638 9308); Jewry Street, EC3, (tel 0171 680 8550); Broadgate, EC2, (tel 0171 628 1251); Monument, EC3, (tel 0171 929 3220); Cannon Street, EC4, (tel 0171 248 1700); Fleet Place, EC4, (tel 0171 329 31410); Exchange Square, EC2, (tel 0171 628 4367); Royal Exchange, EC3, (tel 0171 929 3131); Canary Wharf, €14, (tel 0171 512 0397); Mason's Avenue, EC2, (tel 0171 726 6030); Lloyd's of London, EC3, (tel 0171 621 9201).
Opening hours: St Martin's Lane, 11 a.m.- 11 p.m. Monday-Saturday with brunch at the weekend. Elsewhere hours vary, with most City wine bars opening early for breakfast. Some have separate restaurants; some have outdoor terraces. Check details in advance.