An implausibly matched duo from Observer team recently attended the opening of Queer cocktail bar The Nellie in Elephant Park. This consisted of office ‘fun guy’ Phil from accounts and our diversity lead Marcus, who’s claim to diversity rests in having dated a Dutch guy for six months. What could possibly go wrong?
The Nellie occupies the site of the not very good Latin restaurant Cheeky Chicos, and prides itself on being a quiet refuge in a busy location, and the Elephant is far from quiet. The focus at The Nellie is cocktails, which can be time consuming to create but gratifying after a patient queue at the bar. This sedate nature of the place was confirmed by Phil/Marcus, but we can imagine this vanished by their second round.
Phil ordered a bloody Mary and Marcus a spicy margarita. There might have been further beverages consumed but this wasn’t recorded or remembered. Phil vaguely described his Mary as ‘very tomatoey’ with an abundance of vodka and pepper. Marcus more lucidly described his spicy marg as mixing citrus orange liqueur, and tequila accompanied with a firey kick not often comfortable to the UK palette. Other punters were enjoying Stonewall beers and wines. Phil WhatsApped us something about the toilets being nice but when the quality of loo roll was detailed management found this content to be a bit compromised.
The Nellie serves food which Marcus viewed with a degree of curiosity. In a move of uncharacteristic scrutiny he connected the improvised swag, a remaining fake cactus, a surreal lady on the keyboards to a menu almost identical to not very good Latin joint Cheeky Chicos. With this discovery he bolted out of his upholstered armchair and shouted ‘in the name of Gaga I know what’s going on here!’.. It would appear that Cheeky Chicos lives on but has been reimagined as an upmarket gay bar by means of a few pride flags and photos of Oscar Wilde. Listen, we all have bills to pay so hats off to the Chicos mafia for making such a bold but slightly odd transformation.
The Nellie is a fun night out for our Queer readers and people who like sitting amongst giant fake cacti. They offfer loads of outside space and is a great way to spend a sweaty evening. As for the Observer staff reading this, we’ve told you a million times not to trust Phil with a camera whilst at the pub or anywhere else for that matter as the results are, shall we say, ‘unhelpful’.
