Nobody but the bartender was in the room when I arrived. There were more than a dozen oil lamps, small, one on each table, and a well-lit fire. It was empty because it was a drizzly Tuesday eve, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t feel a little like a seance. I was there to communicate with spirits.
These spirits were not the ghosts of wars past but libations in classical forms. The Library cocktail bar occupies the top floor of The Hero in Maida Vale, named after a British general who won the Battle of Maida, Italy, in 1806.
