After Hours: JEZ NELSON
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Your support makes all the difference.A good place to eat if you like the general madness is Smokey Joe's 131 Wandsworth High St, London SW18 (081-871 1785). It's West Indian food - great spicy fish and chicken - and it's run by one geezer and his mate. It only holds about 10 people, and the cook just throws a pad at you and says write your own order. If he doesn't feel like cooking something, you don't get it. It's like any place in the West Indies - plastic tablecloths and sauce bottles on the table, bring your own drink - but for about pounds 10 you can keep on eating 'til you've had enough. The Peasant 240 St John's St, EC1 (071-336 7726) is where we take business clients. It's a great converted pub, so it's all based around a bar, but it's nice, and they've uncovered the original tiled floor from under the floorboards. The chef does her own thing - I had an amazing asparagus, potato, garlic and basil fritata there last week, and the menu changes weekly. It's casual, and a bit of a media place I'm afraid, but you eat and drink well for pounds 25.
I tend not to go to many pubs, but I live next door to the Tea Rooms Des Artistes, Wandsworth Rd, SW8 (071-652 6526), which is a bar with a club upstairs, and a tiny garden with a pond, so in the summer you can pretend you're somewhere nicer than Wandsworth. They play nice music and people tend to meet there before going on. It's packed at the weekends.
I feel like I've spent half my life in clubs, usually playing jazz and funky stuff, but recently I've been rediscovering House. Feel Real at the Gardening Club The Piazza, Covent Garden, WC2 (071-497 3153) is excellent. It's a funky little club anytime with a great sound system, and it's just the right size.
Jez Nelson, Jazz DJ and children's TV presenter, writes and presents 'Big Bang' every Wednesday 8.30pm, Radio 4, starting 25 May
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