Annie’s Room opens on Thursday 8 October in the basement at 200 Upper Richmond Road: six darts lanes, a bar and sourdough pizza, in a room of its own. A set of doors leads straight through into Le Fez.
So, should you go? Yes, with a few friends. We went to this week’s press preview, where the food and drink were provided free, and found it cosy, fun and full of young people throwing darts.
Look closely at Annie on the sign: she wears an eyepatch with a 1 on it. The name “Annie’s Room” is darts slang for double one, the finish nobody wants to be left needing.
The way in is under an awning split down the middle, half Annie’s Room and half Le Fez.
Downstairs, each lane is its own wood-panelled bay, with scalloped teal wallpaper and a herringbone floor.
The darts are the real thing, and so is the board, but it knows where every dart has landed and keeps the score for you.
A touchscreen at each lane walks you through sixteen games, starting with the serious business of choosing an avatar or snapping a selfie. Some of the games take skill, such as finishing on a double. Others come down mostly to luck, and the system doesn’t tell you which is which. It would help if it did.
Between turns there are padded banquettes and small tables. You know you are in a basement, but it is a cosy one. Where to put your drink while you throw is still being worked out.
Then there are the pictures. The walls are hung with framed paintings of darts slang, each with a card explaining the joke.
A Happy Meal box stands for “McDonald’s”: a score of 69, after the old “meal for two” joke.
A crate of beer swinging from a crane is a “Case of Beer”, which is 24, the number of bottles in a full case.
“Shanghai” is a single, a double and a treble of the same number with three darts.
And one Victorian lady has a giant dart through her head.
The bar has its own pink-lit shelves. Spirits come as 50ml measures unless you ask for a single, so a Tanqueray is £8.50 before you add a mixer. A pint of Asahi is £7.30.
The pizza comes to your lane: a margherita is £11.95, and the burrata and bresaola is £17.
When Le Fez applied in June, the plan was eight lanes in place of the club’s booth seating, and “reheated pizza”. What has opened is six lanes in a room of its own, with sourdough.
The idea in June was to win Le Fez the trade it lacked: earlier evenings, group bookings, birthday parties. A room with its own bar could do more than that. We could see people who would never normally walk into Le Fez giving it a try.
Before you go
Annie’s Room is open Thursday to Saturday until 11pm, from 5pm on Thursdays and Fridays. Lanes are booked by the hour or for 90 minutes at anniesroom.co.uk, walk-ins are welcome, and groups of eight or more pay a small deposit.
The opening flyer offers half-price darts in October to local groups of five to eight who book by email, at bookings@anniesroom.co.uk, before Wednesday 7 October. Christmas bookings are open.
And when the darts stop at 11pm, the doors are right there: on Fridays and Saturdays, Le Fez keeps going until 4am.
