CHILD’S PLAY

Help! They’re infantilising going out — again, says Joanna Taylor

So, guess what? It turns out that the heyday of organised-fun-fuelled eating and drinking establishments wasn’t just relegated to the 2010s. There’s now a whole host of new activity-led bars and restaurants appearing around town promoting one thing: regression to one’s childhood via a raft of games.

Wholly psychedelic spot Birdies in Islington is, according to its founders, ‘a new world of surprise and illusion. Turning the world of crazy golf on its head’, serving burgers by street food gang Cheeky Burger and super sweet cocktails such as the Watermelon Sugar, topped with an extra large bubble. Wacky.

At Brewdog’s new 27,500ft ‘craft beer nirvana’ in Waterloo, the brewing giant has opted for the fail-safe, tech-bro way of coercing people to stay in the building as long as possible: an enormous slide. Oh, and duckpin bowling, of course.

Meanwhile Fairgame, which arrived this week in Canary Wharf, is modelled on an actual funfair. Blessed with the tag line ‘It’s time to be a kid again. In your adult body’, expect activities that involve water guns, shooting hoops and aliens, alongside food from Rudy’s Pizza, Burger and Beyond and a sweet stall designed to give cheeky chompers ‘the sugar rush of your parents’ nightmares’.

And finally there’s the slightly more grown-up sounding ‘world’s first gastro-gaming restaurant’, Oche, on the Strand. What does that mean, exactly? Darts, sharing plates and cocktails, duh. And while we’re pretty sure that’s been done before (ahem, Flight Club), the oysters with yuzu and wasabi and the halibut sashimi do sound rather tempting.

Game? We’ll catch you up.