To get an idea of what Charlotte Street Blues is like, you just have to listen to Chris Maxwell talk.

It’s very easy to move through,” says manager and partner Maxwell. “It feels like you’re an actor on a theatre set, if you like. There’s a space at the front with French doors opening onto a patio, which we call the Parlour Room, which is very typical of blues bar in America – certainly in the Southern States – when they used to open blues bars in their houses and use their front room like a little juke joint.

Then we move through the ground floor to the area where there’s a stage [for the bands]. We then move upstairs where there’s a porch bar done up like an old Mississippi back porch, and then through that, we go to a bourbon bar which is done up like an old gentleman’s club, with about eighty-five different bourbons. Downstairs we have our little dive bar with a pool table and jukebox. All very different spaces, and I think people enjoy moving through them and listening to the music as they do it.”

You’ve got to applaud Charlotte Street Blues for ambition. They’re not just attempting to style themselves as a hot new blues joint and apparent rival to Ronnie Scott’s but as an art gallery and ice-cool lounge bar as well.

This is, one might think, an almost suicidally stupid prospect in the current climate, but Maxwell says that he believes Charlotte Street Blues can compete with the best. “The biggest challenge was acquiring the site,” he says when asked about setting up the bar – which has only been open for a few weeks. “Finding the right site for live music in central London… and then on top of that, it was doing the design and coming up with the concept. Louise, our designer, is incredible. The build was probably the biggest challenge.”

John Lee Hooker Junior and John Mayall are playing the venue this month, but Maxwell says the best he’s seen so far is Mississippi Heat (his bartender Eddy, below, concurs). “They played last Saturday,” he says. “Chicago-based blues band with an incredible guitar. Very professional and down-to-earth. Talking to them, you could tell that blues was their life.”

Where? 74 Charlotte Street, W1T 4QH, 020 7580 0113
Web? www.charlottestblues.com
How? Tube: Goodge Street (Northern Line) / Bus: 10, 14, 24, 29, 73, 134, 390
Founded? 2009
Vibe? Cool as a Kentucky breeze
Pint? £3.20