JAGUAR SHOES

First up, we should tell you that you can’t buy bags, shoes or jaguars in Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes (if you want accessories, head south to Shoreditch High Street). Instead, people to come this streetwise watering hole for good cocktails, frosty bottled beers and intense conversations about the relative merits of Richard Kern and Nobuyoshi Araki. With its design-oriented crowd and stripped-down, after-the-goldrush interior, Jaguar Shoes is undeniably part of the Hoxton scene, but it also feels like a local, a welcome find east of Old Street.

Once upon a time, you couldn’t move in here for ironic haircuts, sported by aspirational types who were born too late to know about A Flock of Seagulls, but Jaguar Shoes has mellowed with age. These days, there are plenty of regulars and you’ll even see a few older drinkers, browsing the latest edition of Vice over a pint of Belgian beer. But by gosh it can get busy. Do yourself a favour – come early to bag one of the sofas and leave your work bag in the office to pick up Monday.

Every other bar in Hoxton aspires to be a gallery, but at Dreams Bags Jaguar Shoes the work is pasted directly onto the walls, not hung aloofly in picture frames. There’s some interesting work on show too – on exhibition opening nights people don their best vintage gear and the bar shakes till late with the kind of music that makes you want to go home and log onto iTunes. Our summary? All the hedonism of Hoxton, without the hard sell.