From the commotion of Old Street, and through floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the bright, former industrial space that comprises the first floor of Fare Bar and Canteen.

It’s a multi-level café, bar and restaurant that cleverly switches roles from day to night. On the first floor, the high ceiling drips with pot plants, pendant lights and exposed beams. A large, semi-circular and marble-topped bar anchors the space, with gleaming silver taps spouting natural beers and wines. There are a few tables that seat four or more towards the front windows, but if there’s just a couple of you, it’s worth sitting at the bar. As B comments, the stools are particularly comfortable and there’s just the right amount of space between them to retain intimacy with your companion whilst there’s a stranger to your other side. There’s also space for about 30 outside, which will prove lovely in warmer weather.

Downstairs, in the more formal dining room, the ceiling is lower and the lights are darker. It’s more moody and less clamorous (yes, upstairs does get quite noisy), but the industrial chic vibe is still readily apparent. B and I have eaten downstairs on a number of occasions, and although the menu has changed since Fare first opened (the ever-popular pizzas are now available downstairs, with the menu being more relaxed - i.e. less fine dining), we’ve never been disappointed.

Today (when I’ve managed to finish work at a reasonable hour and the sun is – gasp! - still shining), the first floor bar is just starting to get busy. We’re greeted by the barmen, and after umming-and-ahhing over which part of the bar to sit at, we work our way around to the rear (facing out towards the front windows). Brown paper menus (food on one side, drinks on the other) and water arrive immediately.

In terms of drinks by the glass, there are:

• five whites

• one pink

• one skin

• five reds on tap (served in a 125ml glass or 500 ml carafe)

• three beers (also on tap), and

• several cocktail/mixed drink options.

If you’re hungry, there are seven delectable pizzas and five ‘plates’ (one each of salad, cheese, seafood, pasta and meat). Although we’re too late for it today, their £10 pizza + a house wine or Negroni (Monday to Friday, from 3:00-6:00pm) is an absolute steal.

When we come to ordering and start to ask questions about the wines, we’re told that the downstairs wine list (by the glass and bottle) is available upstairs also, and that they can easily fetch the sommelier to assist. We start with two of the wines on tap, the Westwell Wines Ortega from Kent and the Domaine Séailles Sauvignon Blanc from South Western France.

The Ortega tastes of ripe white peach and honeydew melon, with a slight grassiness on the nose. The Sauvignon Blanc reminds me of the lovely and lean Australian versions that I’m used to – it smells of passionfruit and tastes of crisp apple, with a slight caramel note. Our only disappointment is that the glassware isn’t quite up to scratch (they seem to use standard tasting glasses, which are reasonably thick-set, but that probably makes sense in the busy bar area).

On the next round, we engage the assistance of the sommelier (partly because we saw her pouring the most luscious looking orange wine into a decanter earlier, and we want to know what it is). We don’t go for the orange wine ourselves – she poured the last bottle of the Radikon Chardonnay ‘Slatnik’ 2016 from Friuli Venezia Giulia for that lucky table – but she gives us a try of the orange wine on tap (Celler Frisach Garnacha from Catalunya) and cheerily talks us through the downstairs wine list by the glass. We choose a glass of the Enderle & Moll Pinot Noir ‘Basis’ 2017 from Baden, and the Cantina Giardino Aglianico ‘Le Fole’ 2014 from Campania.

As she pops downstairs to fill our glasses, I flick through the list of wines by the bottle. No joke - with this wine list, I want to try everything. All of the bottles look interesting, as though (whether to our taste or not) they could each teach us something about a particular region, grape or wine-making practice. Not only does that make it an exciting list (we can’t wait to try this or that), but also an enticing one (it keeps us coming back for more). There’s also something quite aesthetic and amusing about the big red ‘DRUNK’ text stamped on the names of bottles that are no longer available. On a side note, the physical list itself probably needs to be re-designed, as the clipboard format is a tad annoying to use.

Back to our chosen wines: B takes a sip of the pale ruby Pinot Noir, and I can tell from his face that he’s pleased. “I just want to party after it!”, he exclaims. There’s strawberry, red currant and something slightly herbaceous on the nose, with a slender liquorice taste halfway through. Once I’ve finished laughing at B, I turn to the Aglianico: it’s earthy and dry, and you could be forgiven for thinking - on first contact - that it’s going to be quite harsh. However, it’s surprisingly delicate and refined, with long length. There’s forest floor on the palate, wound with small red fruits and black pepper. Given that it’s dinner time, and pizzas are cropping up all around us, it’s getting harder to smell the wines with that tasty odour in the air.

We try to come up with a shorthand description of what Fare Bar and Canteen is like, and we come up with ‘convivial hipster’. It’s on-trend but not full of itself, and the staff (as well as fellow drinkers and diners) are friendly, fun and flirtatious. We like a place that takes its wine seriously, but recognises that people really just want to have a good time (and maybe experiment with a different drop every now and then).

Note: Since writing this review, Fare Bar and Canteen has closed its downstairs restaurant, which is now used for private functions only.