Drink Lagos: Peppercorn Avenue
Peppercorn.
LOL.
Now, I didn’t have any expectations prior to my Peppercorn visit. It was just one of those places I come across whenever I am in Lekki, so I guess I was just curious to see what it looked like inside.
Gbenga gave up alcohol and going out to restaurants for lent (*rolling my eyes and at the same time doing the sign of the cross*) so I was going to Peppercorn on my jays. Low key wasn’t excited as I really enjoy bullying Gbenga during our reviews but luckily for me, I had a meeting with a friend Tamara so I told her to come through.
“TL;DR Tbh according to Tamara, and I totally agree it’s a bring your ex for drinks place because you totally dislike him/her or a bring your aunt from Benin that is just visiting Lagos and doesn’t know better. I honestly wouldn’t suggest it as a drinks spot for anything except you just want to go drink wine or beer but I’m sure you’ll rather go somewhere else. I also cannot believe that all the cocktails are 3500 with what they serve.”
Anyway, this is the long version:
After spending an hour in traffic in Lekki trying to get to another spot in Lekki, Peppercorn wasn’t the best spot to relax my nerves at all. On getting in and meeting an already petrified Tamara, the ambiance of the place just made my mood worsen. It's one of those spots you end up in because you're in the neighborhood. You stop by to eat because you are really hungry and you’ve probably heard that their food isn’t that bad. It's not a place you crave or you're like "we must go to Peppercorn!".
Ignoring the ambiance and hoping that a few cocktails + chit chat would at least lighten up my mood, we headed over to the bar and asked for their cocktail menu. There are only 5 cocktails on the menu:
Long Island Iced Tea (of course)
Tequila Sunrise
Black Russian
Mojito
Martini Lemon Twist
Tamara, not wanting to believe that she only had 5 options, asked the bartender if they had another cocktail menu. He said no but we could order any cocktail that we wanted and he would mix it. I just started laughing at this point and advised Tamara that we stick to the menu so, at least we know what we are drinking. Tamara, however, insisted on getting something else, so she asked for Disaronno and this is where I gave up. The same bartender said: “ahh aunty we don’t have that one oo, it has to be what is on the menu"
SIGH.
Anyway, we decided to go with a Mojito, Long Island Iced Tea, and a Martini Lemon Twist.
Mojito: The color of my Mojito was brown. It tasted like an Ice Tea with so much lemon. That’s it.
Mojito
Long Island Ice Tea: It tasted like coke and vodka. I had to check to make sure they had all the ingredients for it and it seemed like they did but I genuinely just had coke and vodka.
Long Island
Martini Lemon Twist: Now, I was completely done by this time and I didn’t want any more disappointments so I told Tamara to please have the pleasure of tasting and giving her comments on the martini lemon twist. That was one of the best decisions I made on that day.
Peach Mule
When it came out, it looked scary and it was just wrong. It looked like orange juice with pulp and then it had two olives on a toothpick and a straw and OMG it had salt around the glass. I was looking for the lemon rind, I was looking at the color and I was just weak. The look on Tamara’s face was priceless, she looked like she was about to scream for help and it got worse as she asked for a vodka mix instead of gin but it still came with gin and tasted horrible.
TL:DR
Food: Full Kitchen
Happy Hour: No | Bottle Service: Yes | Wine: Yes | Beer: Yes
DAMAGE
Mojito - 3500
Long Island Ice Tea - 3500
Martini Lemon Twist - 3500
Lala is the Founder and Head Consultant Marketing at Lala Alakija agency. She also runs a cocktail club, Eko Cocktail Club, which you should join if you are a lover of cocktails and you are interested in partaking in creative boozy experiences.