Central London gets a Red alert

Designer and entrepreneur Ian Rey’s new Russian-themed wine bar Red has only been open for a week and he’s already had to call in the ambulance.

Rey designed the Vodka Dome which graces each table. You help yourself to vodka and pay later. Instant gratification. Rey hopes the domes will become his trademark, but he’s slightly nervous at the effect they seem to be having.

“Suddenly this girl just passed out at the table, she’d had a lot of vodka on top of a lot of beer and it was too much. Everyone stopped and stared and we had to call the ambulance,” says Rey. Even more embarrassing for her, he felt obliged to call her father.

Rey admits he is “worried people will just get paralytic all the time”, which is how it’s been so far. Perhaps customers will graduate to baby beetroot filled with herring. But it’s unlikely.