Rebel Dining Society started as the brain child of dinning duo Shay Ola and Charlie Vanillaface. Having had a successful run of this pop up dining venture at various locations in East London in 2010, Rebel Dining Society has a permanent home on Vyner Street, the infamous east end First Thursday jaunt which is also home to Nettie Horn, Wilkinson and Matt Roberts to name a few. Rebel Dinning's new home is akin to the areas art history as previously hosted the shambolic Degree Art exhibitions (I saw some awful art in there). It is great to see new life being breathed into this fantastic ex-church space with stained glass windows and beams.

Initially sceptical about this dinning experience, especially as its neighbouring street, Wadeson is home to my favourite London restaurant, Bistrotheque, I was pleasantly surprised to ascend the stairs to be greeted with an see through glass kitchen, with Shay Ola smiling pleasantly and passing over a cooler king cocktail (more of this later). For this edition, aptly named The Green Hour in collaboration with Pernod Absinthe,  mixologist Niall Downey bar manager at NOPI, created creating five unique Pernod Absinthe cocktails paired with a accompanying mouth watering Rebel Dining courses.

As we take our seats on our allocated table of eight, the atmosphere in here is great. I wasn't sure if it was going to be individual tables for two (often isolating dinners), instead we all get chatting, with Charlie Vanilla dropping some tunes in the background.

As soon as everyone is well acquainted, there's a brief introduction to our host of the evening, Niall Downey, a charming and funny host mixologist from Nopi, who does a great job at keeping everyone engaged throughout. We start of the evening with Cooler King cocktails, a combination of Pernod Absinthe, Beefeater Gin, lemon, cucumber and mint sprigs. A refreshing start, accompanied by Salmon granita, cucumber and red onion dust, all eloquently presented I might add.

First course aside, dinners plates cleared, we move on to a Chocolat cocktail and at this point everyone is sort of getting involved with the making process. My guest and I are are quite raucous, fighting over who's go it is and not really listening and really making double proportions, adding more bits of what we prefer. With a stern look from one of the bar men, we chuckle and get back to it, following Niall's instructions carefully. One measure of bitters mixed with a double Pernod Absinthe etc. accompanied by Baba Ganoush, pomegrante and feta. I had been very excited about the next course, Stuffed rabbit, carrot puree and tarragon. It was so tasty I could have had seconds. This culinary delight paired with Moulin Rouge a mix of E8 vodka, absinthe and groittines juice. This was my meal of the night, with two more courses to go, Petit fours (which I wrongly guessed as four cheeses) with Ammiri cocktail and Black Forest dessert with the final cocktail of the night Belle Epoque, which acted as a digestive, softening the pallet.

Rebel Dinning was a winner for me as it was such a sociable and fun atmosphere. I was unsure if people would get involved, but with a combination of winning mixologist host, Niall, scrumptious food and cocktails flowing (made by dinners), it was a blast. A unique dinning expereince and certainly one I will continually return to. I look forward to the next event which I am told will be a Bombay Saphire extravaganza. I cannot wait!

* Images courtesy Tania Turvey