The sleazy bar is back — are you naughty enough to go there?

Take that Oura ring off, put your step counter on pause — the new mood is decadent. “There’s an escapist thing happening, a resurgence of opulence,” says William Elliott, executive bar director of Tigre, the new Lower East Side cocktail lounge from Brooklyn’s beloved Maison Premiere. 

Tigre’s fly-posted door on scruffy Rivington Street gives no clue to the glamour within: a bar fusing the elegance of an old-school hotel with the sleaze of a ’70s lair. A central horseshoe-shaped bar seating eight is flanked by jacquard velvet banquettes and walls lined in gold micro-suede. There are mirrors on the ceiling, priapic anthuriums dotted about and two private snugs (each sitting up to six), one of them screened by a curtain of fine chainmail.

The cocktail menu sees retro classics given a Premiere twist: a pink Cosmo is laced with Tigre’s own spiced cranberry cordial; a Screwdriver is mixed with four types of freshly squeezed citrus and orange liqueurs from Italy and Haiti. An entire page is given over to the hard-drinking Martini. Guests can order by ratio (of gin to vermouth) or try variations such as the smouldering Cigarette Martini (“It tastes like kissing someone who just smoked a cigarette,” is how my waitress alluringly described it).

To have fun you really do require some degree of privacy

The 1970s Playboy’s Host & Bar Book was “a prompt”, says Elliott. “The drinks in the book are pretty terrible, the food is even worse, but it harks back to a great era of hosting, and we wanted to play on that.” The Premiere Enterprises team were creative directors for the development of London’s ultra-private members’ club Maison Estelle — and they set out to capture that mystique when it came to creating Tigre. “We wanted to evoke something of that residential feeling you get in great places like Estelle and Chiltern Firehouse, where it feels like you’re being encouraged to venture into spaces that seem private or off-limits.”

This autumn Tigre will unveil an even more intimate lounge out the back. “If the main Tigre is like flying business, this will be like flying first class,” says Elliott. “People will be able to hire it in its entirety for whatever shenanigans they want.”

Performative partying is tacky — it’s sexy to be discreet. Luca Maggiore channelled this with his revamp of legendary Jermyn Street nightclub Tramp. And more bars are now offering booths, nooks and crannies for mischief. The “G-Spot” — a curtained-off alcove for two downstairs in Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park — was a notorious hangout back in the day for party animals including Mick Jagger. Now the restaurant where Kate Moss celebrated her 22nd birthday is getting a new lease of life thanks to local venture capitalist and chef Tara MacBain. “The ground-floor restaurant no longer has the same bohemian feel — it feels more like an extension of home,” says MacBain. “But down in the cellar, where the original alcoves are, the atmosphere gets a bit more naughty.” There are four blood-red alcoves seating three to eight, screened by velvet and leather drapes. And an excellent cocktail list — order the Sauternes Martini — by mixologists Atelier Pip.

Paris’s Hôtel Costes has played host to many a decadent bash, and now it has a hotel in Chelsea, At Sloane, promising “discreet British charm” mixed with “French flair”. The 19th-century mansion building is richly furnished with custom French fabrics, hand-painted trompe-l’oeils and néo-grec friezes. In the basement, a candlelit bar offers cashmere-draped snugs for secret assignations.

“To have fun you really do require some degree of privacy — the iPhone killed all the fun,” laments fashion photographer and Seventy One Gin creator Mert Alas. “Before, if someone was dancing on the table and you could see her knickers, it was a rumour. Now it’s a recording.”

“The smartphone meant all the really beautiful, interesting parties moved from the clubs to hotel rooms, like the 49 room at Chateau Marmont,” agrees his business partner Tasso Ferreira. “Now the smart operators are thinking, ‘How can I bring those codes of privacy, of service, curation, good music, good service, to a bar?’”

The pair have hosted Seventy One Gin parties at Chateau Marmont, Chiltern Firehouse and Paris’s historic Lapérouse, the restaurant and former brothel on the Left Bank housed in an 18th-century warren of extravagantly decorated rooms. To celebrate the launch of Seventy One Gin’s 71 Editions, a triptych of pocket-sized reprints of Dante’s Inferno, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wuthering Heights, Alas and Ferreira will be hosting Martini-fuelled readings in some of the world’s most luxurious hotel suites.

So feel free to let your hair down this autumn — just don’t post about it. 

@alicelascelles