A Glass Duck at the Bottom of the Sazerac
The Dalston brothers took their carbonated French 75 into Soho and built a 40-seat cocktail bar that plays classics with straight faces and small tricks. Book the booth. Order the Sazzaquack.
A little glass duck sits at the bottom of the Sazerac. It bobs up when the drink is half-drained — Seven Tails XO, rooibos tea, lemon absinthe and a whisper of soy sauce that reads as depth rather than novelty. The gimmick is the duck. The drink is the point.
Noel and Max Venning opened the original Three Sheets in Dalston in 2016 and spent the better part of a decade being the East London bar cocktail writers kept sending people to. The Soho room, on the awkward little dogleg of Manette Street off Charing Cross Road, is the second act. It landed at No.80 on The World's 50 Best Bars 2025, which is a useful shorthand for what the brothers are doing here — classics with one small structural change per drink, executed at a level that reads as effortless because someone worked very hard on it.
The classics arrive with one component quietly rebuilt, and the room is small enough that you notice each edit.
Editorial Deep
The carbonated French 75 is what the brothers built the Dalston reputation on and it remains the correct opening move — gin, clarified lemon, a stripe of Moscato, orange flower and verjus, force-carbonated so it reads more like a very serious drink than a cocktail with bubbles. The lemon has been stripped of pulp and sharpness; what's left is a clean line of citrus that runs the length of the glass. Order it first and let the bar tell you what it thinks precision means.
Manette Street is a two-minute alley between Charing Cross Road and Greek Street that most people walk past without registering. The room inside is narrow, low, and lit by candles that flicker rather than glow — dark green leather booths down one side, small round marble tables with green leather chairs opposite, and a bar that runs long enough to drink at but not deep enough to hide behind. Forty seats, give or take. When it's full it's full.
Soho after work, mostly — media people, industry drinkers who've come in from Dalston to check what the brothers did with the second room, couples on a second date who wanted somewhere neither obvious nor difficult. It skews slightly older and considerably calmer than the surrounding Soho grid. Nobody is shouting. Nobody is filming the duck. The crowd is what the room was built to hold, and on a Wednesday at nine it holds it well.
Two rounds for two, with the complimentary oysters that arrive with a Martini order, comes in materially below what the same evening costs at the Connaught Bar without the drinks giving much away. Staying for a burger is a defensible move rather than a splurge. The room is small enough that a slow drinker on a busy night will feel the pressure of the door, which is the real cost here rather than the tab itself.
This is a two-drink bar done at a three-drink standard, and the best version of the night is the early one — arrive at six, take the booth, order the French 75 and the oysters, follow with the Sazzaquack, eat the chips, leave by eight-thirty for dinner somewhere on Dean Street. Come back on a sunny Thursday when the windows are open. Don't come if you want a long, loud, late night with a group of six — the room won't hold it and the pressure of the door will find you by round three.
Order this
Drink this.
Carbonated French 75, Dirty Martini (with the complimentary oysters), Sazzaquack, mustard chips
“A precise, grown-up cocktail bar hidden on Manette Street. Book the booth, order the Sazzaquack, take the oysters.”
The Vennings' second room is a 40-seat cocktail bar on a Soho alley that plays classics with one component quietly rebuilt — the carbonated French 75, the Koseret-tea Dirty Martini, the Sazzaquack with a glass duck in the base. The room is dark green leather, marble and candlelight; the crowd is Soho on its calmer setting. Grab a bar seat at opening or book a booth in advance, order a Martini or a glass of Champagne to trigger the three complimentary oysters, and treat this as a two-drink bar done to a three-drink standard. Skip it if you want a long, loud group night. Go for the early sitting before dinner.
The Verdict
