Review

A central feature of the sprawling Camden Lock Market with a prime view, overlooking the Hampstead Road Lock, Bar Risa is always busy and primarily a bar - as its name suggests - rather than a pub. Smaller than the average bar or pub in the area, the lack of space indoors is contrary to a large outdoor area with picnic tables aplenty. During the warmer months the external area is rammed full of punters, laughing and shouting abuse at the passing narrowboats, whose occupants struggle with the complexity of working a lock in full view of a pub-load of beered-up louts!

Above the main bar is a smaller balcony area, with plenty of tables and far too many chairs. Sitting where you can overlook the bar provides an ideal vantage point for watching the women down below, although from here you get a closer inspection of the life-size, homogeneous figures hanging above the bar, which are quite hideous and far too 80s to take seriously.

There is a doorman at Bar Risa who actively discourages underage drinking by apprehending anybody seen entering the bar that appears to be under the legal age; underage drinkers could hide outside, sending in the oldest looking person to buy the drinks.

There is a small stage at one end of the bar, although 'small' is too overgenerous a word to use for this tiny platform area, on which any musical artistes would struggle; the mice and their Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ, as featured in TV's Bagpuss, would struggle to find space to throw shapes here! You're only likely to see solo singers, duos and acoustic sets here, as the stage isn't big enough for even the drum kit belonging to one of the bands playing below!

Bar Risa is situated above Dingwalls, the legendary music venue where The Stranglers sang about the London Lady - 'Little lady with Dingwall's bullshit, You're so stupid, foetid brainwaves'! The list of bands to have played here is quite extraordinary, and far too memorable to mention in passing. You might, on occasions, bump into a minor celebrity sitting in Bar Risa, inside or out, if their band is playing in Dingwalls that night.

It's not hard to guess when entering Bar Risa that the drinks will be pricey, although the eye-candy is worth the extra few ££. The entertainment seems limited to abusing narrowboats in the Lock, and watching an acoustic duo sink like a lead balloon.

Review by mr_psm