EBG Rating: 8.5/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Molecular mixology is the scientific slant on cocktails here, described in obtuse terms across a dense cocktail menu that makes decision making extremely difficult. With an array of 500 rums it is not only a tricky, fussy mixologists paradise but a genuine specialist.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Inspired by an Antiguan beach bar, takamaka fittings on the wall with other African and Equatorial influences. This is dressed on what is a pretty standard bar structure – outside there’s street side patio with outside tables by a long boulevard, inside a bar stretching along the right of the room with low tables and lounge furniture opposite. Plenty of space at the bar too.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Kind service definitely contributes to the special feeling of the experience, with the novelty cocktails and surroundings burnishing it further. Some minor aspects do drag it down like a rather tacky menu and cheap snacks. Normally this would barely register as an issue for us, but it just seems to clash with what they’re aiming to do.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️
Aperitivo, outdoor seating

Value For Money:
❤️❤️
On the high end in general for the city, but nothing surprising.

Description:
Sadly the creators of Nottingham Forest haven’t expanded into a franchise Franchise system, so you can’t go to Belize to find a cocktail bar called Bolton Wanderers, nor is there a Donetsk bar called Sheffield Wednesday (unless we missed something).

Why the name? The original owner Dario Comini apparently visited a bar in Antigua named after the football club in the 1970s. The original bar was destroyed in a Hurricane, but the influence lives on here.

A curious blend of influences, the bar is rich with a kind of colonial explorer trove of African and Equatorial elements including Antiguan takamaka, along a bar which is partly constructed from elements of the famous Knickerbocker Hotel.

The bar is fitted with elements more akin to a chemical laboratory which allow for high level “molecular” mixology which is another concept on the bars already dense swamp of concepts.

Perusing their menu is an overwhelming experience, bombarded with novel concepts which simultaneously intrigue and baffle, even more so considering the menu is a very cheaply made tacky affair. A lot of the creations are delivered with a flourish, occasionally requiring you, the customer to deliver the coup de grace.

Everywhere you look it seems to be delocating. What am I looking at? What am I drinking? At this stage it is best to take a moment, step back and take in the surroundings. The bar is nice, you’re being well looked after. The atmosphere is good, the temperature of the room is just right. Yes, despite the layers of novelty threatening to suffocate the experience, this is actually working.

You can also keep it simple and order a straight drink. Nottingham Forest is a rum treasure trove with 500 varieties to choose from.

Bear in mind there are no reservations here and entry is managed on the door, though not in a bouncer type way. You will have more luck solo or as a couple as there is often space at the bar itself, but it is one of those venues where you simply have to try your luck, or failing that, go early.

A truly distinctive, unusual and dense mesh of interests makes for a rather exotic and atypical experience on the one hand, then you regain your senses and realise you’re sat in a nice room, being looked after and enjoying a special drink.

(Added November 2025)