The 40 Best Bars in the United Kingdom

Connaught Bar

The Connaught Bar opened in 2008 inside The Connaught hotel in Mayfair, in a Cubist-inspired room designed by David Collins Studio. Its martini trolley comes to the table, where the drink is made to order and finished with a choice of the bar's own aromatic bitters. Signature cocktails are added through the year alongside vintage serves, and the bar bottles its own Connaught Bar gin and has published a book of 100 of its recipes. There are no reservations; it opens Monday to Saturday from 4pm.

Satan's Whiskers

Satan's Whiskers opened in late 2013 on Cambridge Heath Road and describes itself as Bethnal Green's original neighborhood cocktail bar. The menu changes daily and concentrates on classic cocktails made with a spirits line-up the team picks with care, played out to a hip hop soundtrack. Reservations are taken by telephone only and walk-ins are welcome; the bar also sells bottled cocktails online and offers a consultancy service.

Scarfes Bar

Gerald Scarfe's caricatures stare down from the walls of Rosewood London's flagship bar, giving the room a sardonic edge that cuts through its gentleman's-club aesthetic. New Director of Bars Andy Loudon, appointed in 2024, delivered his first full menu in 2025, a collection that respects the bar's tradition of spirit-forward drinking while introducing lighter, more seasonal constructions. At No. 77 on The 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2026, after No. 31 in 2025, Scarfes operates in the sweet spot between establishment credibility and creative ambition. The leather armchairs alone are worth the reservation. It currently stands at No. 47 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.

A Bar with Shapes For a Name

Remy Savage, formerly of The Little Red Door in Paris and Artesian at The Langham, stripped cocktail bar design back to Bauhaus first principles: a yellow triangle, a red square, a blue circle, and twelve drinks chosen through blind tasting. The menu splits evenly between six classics and six house creations, and ingredients earn their place on flavor alone, not narrative. Ranked No. 73 on The World's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2025, this Kingsland Road bar proves that minimalism and warmth are not opposites. Savage and business partner Paul Lougrat built something that looks effortless. It is not. It was a Top 4 finalist for Best International Cocktail Bar at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Three Sheets Soho

Three Sheets Soho is the second bar from brothers Max and Noel Venning, opened in March 2024 on Manette Street just off Greek Street, with a front that opens onto the pedestrianised pavement. It follows the Dalston original's approach of simple, seasonal cocktails made with restraint, the French 75 among the signatures. Food runs to British oysters with Champagne, a burger and chips and a seasonal menu, and it opens from the afternoon seven days a week.

Swift

Opened in 2016 by Mia Johansson and Bobby Hiddleston, both formerly of Milk & Honey, and backed by Nightjar and Oriole owners Rosie Stimpson and Edmund Weil. Swift splits across two floors: a bright ground-floor bar for cocktails and oysters, and a darker basement of booths with a whisky list running past 250 bottles. The Irish Coffee is the house calling card. Accolades include No.30 in the World's 50 Best Bars 2022 and Time Out London's No.1 Cocktail Bar for 2018 and 2019. Bookings are by email only, the bar takes no phone reservations. Sister sites in Shoreditch and Borough.

Kwãnt

Kwãnt is the Mayfair bar of Erik Lorincz, for nearly eight years head bartender of the American Bar at The Savoy, on Stratton Street near Green Park. It reopened here in 2023 after the first Kwãnt, opened in 2019 beneath Momo on Heddon Street, closed when the restaurant failed. The room has hand-painted Polynesian tapa art, cane ceilings, chessboard tables and tall windows, and the menu splits into signature and vintage cocktails built with house distillates, clarification and fermentation, with garnishes grown on site.

Lyaness

Ryan 'Mr Lyan' Chetiyawardana's flagship at Sea Containers London, where the redesign kept the marble bar and added electric blue accents. It is the team's successor to Dandelyan, The World's Best Bar 2018, which occupied the same riverside space. The menu is ingredient-led: the current 'Collaboration 2.0' list builds drinks around ideas and collaborations rather than classic formats, in serves like the Pink Belly Gimlet and the Multi-Milk. Lyaness was the first bar awarded three PINs in The Pinnacle Guide and ranked No.39 in the World's 50 Best Bars 2019. Saturdays and Sundays from 1pm to 4pm bring £10 Champagne.

Side Hustle

Side Hustle is the bar of NoMad London, the hotel in the former Bow Street Magistrates' Court opposite the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Its cocktails center on agave spirits and Latin American flavors, alongside NoMad classics and large-format drinks for groups of four to six, with tacos, ceviche and other plates for sharing. Forest-green booths and a marble-topped bar sit among commissioned art, including photographs by Martin Parr. The bar won Best International Hotel Bar at the 2025 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.

Waltz

An intimate Japanese-inflected cocktail bar opened in 2025 on Scrutton Street in Shoreditch. It serves a full conceptual cocktail menu, with first-come walk-in bar seats and bookable tables; contact is by email, as no phone number is published. It sits at No. 23 on Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026.

Panda & Sons

Panda & Sons opened in 2013 on Queen Street, hidden behind a vintage barbershop front, founded by the bartender Iain McPherson and his family. Its Transcend menu is built on sub-zero technique, the result of five years of research into switching, sous pression, freeze drying and cryo concentration developed in an in-house lab the team calls the Brain Melting Society.

The American Bar

Open since 1893, the American Bar at The Savoy is London's longest-surviving cocktail bar and was named the World's Best Bar in 2017. Ada Coleman became its first female head bartender in 1903 and created the Hanky Panky here, still served today, while her successor Harry Craddock set down the canon in his 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book. The current menu is story-driven, capturing moments from the bar's history in drinks like Since 1986 and Painter's Palette, poured in an Art Deco room that has welcomed everyone from Churchill to Hemingway.

Three Sheets Dalston

Brothers Max and Noel Venning opened this pared-back Kingsland Road original in 2016 and took it to No.16 in the World's 50 Best Bars 2019. The menu sorts drinks into One, Two and Three Sheets by intensity, all clean, thoughtful serves built on seasonal ingredients and modern technique, the carbonated French 75, with gin, lemon, Moscato and orange flower water, is the signature. Closed Mondays; a Soho sibling opened on Manette Street in 2024.

Amaro

Neighborhood cocktail bar on Kensington High Street, in its own words, where timeless elegance meets modern mixology, expertly crafted cocktails and small plates in a refined room, led by Elon Soddu. The Evening Standard called it 'a proper cocktail bar in a part of town not known for them'. The team also runs its own spirits shop and sister venue Twice Shy. Card payments only; dogs welcome.

Coupette

Chris Moore's French-inspired cocktail bar has anchored Bethnal Green Road since summer 2017, named after the coupe glass and built on locally sourced ingredients, with calvados as the house spirit. The Champagne Piña Colada is the enduring signature. Awards came fast: Best New Opening at the World's 50 Best Bars 2018, No.18 that year and No.23 in 2019, plus Tales of the Cocktail's Best New International Cocktail Bar 2018. A second venue, Atelier Coupette, is now open on Moor Street in Soho.

Bar Termini

A tiny 1950s-inspired Italianate bar on Old Compton Street where coffee and cocktails share equal billing from 10am. The house negroni comes in four versions, Classico, Superiore, Rosato and Robusto, with bottled take-away negronis to carry home, alongside an Italian coffee program of espresso, Bicerin and Caffè Shakerato. Bar Termini made the World's 50 Best Bars list three consecutive years, 2016 to 2018, and the team runs an experimental Drinks Factory in Islington.

Artesian

Head Bartender Giulia Cuccurullo, the first woman to hold the position in Artesian's history, arrived in 2018 and worked her way through every rank at The Langham's flagship bar. A Global Patrón Perfectionist winner and GQ shortlistee, Cuccurullo represents a generational shift at a venue that once defined the London hotel bar arms race. The room still carries its stately proportions, but the program now reflects a quieter confidence: less spectacle, more substance. The reinvention is deliberate, and it is working. London's bar scene sustains itself on productive disagreement, Mayfair formality versus East London spontaneity, heritage brands versus first-year independents, technique versus instinct. The result, heading into 2026, is a city where no single style dominates and every neighborhood pours with conviction. Start saving for the flight.

Viajante87

A subterranean Latin American-inspired cocktail bar from Thesleff Group, set in the basement of a Notting Hill townhouse. It specializes in mezcal and tequila drinks backed by a collection of over 250 spirits, with weekend DJ sets spanning Latin, disco, house and funk.

Oriole

Oriole is the sister bar of Nightjar, now at 7-9 Slingsby Place in St Martin's Courtyard, Covent Garden, after leaving its original home at Smithfield Market. The ground-floor Bamboo Bar and terrace pour cocktails built from ingredients gathered around the world, and the basement restaurant serves Latin American cooking. Live jazz, blues and world music play from Tuesday to Saturday, with the cover charge going straight to the musicians.

SCHOFIELD'S BAR

The Donovan Bar

Brown's Hotel's bar is the vision of Salvatore 'The Maestro' Calabrese, creator of the Breakfast Martini, with Federico Pavan as Director of Mixology. The room celebrates photographer Terence Donovan, whose boldest portraits hang throughout, the riskiest in the semi-private Naughty Corner. Calabrese's 'Salvatore's Legacy', mixed from 18th- and 19th-century spirits, set a 2012 Guinness World Record at £5,500, and the Vintage Cabinet still pours spirits dating back to 1770. Walk-ins only; no sportswear.

Happiness Forgets

Alastair Burgess's candlelit basement under Hoxton Square, red brick walls, red glass pendant lamps, and a menu the World's 50 Best sums up as polished cocktails in a deliberately low-key room. The bar's own tagline: 'Great Cocktails, No Wallies'. It reached No.40 in the World's 50 Best Bars 2019. Doors open at 5pm every day; bookings run through the site, and the team also operates sister bar No Nuisance in St Albans.

Sexy Fish

An Asian restaurant and bar on Berkeley Square dressed in mid-century glamour by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, with artworks by Damien Hirst, Frank Gehry and Michael Roberts throughout. The lower-ground Coral Room holds two of the largest live coral reef tanks in the world, and the bar claims the world's biggest Japanese whisky collection. Signatures run from Miso Thirsty (Hibiki whisky, miso, plum, sesame) to the Golden Riviera; happy hour 'Sundown Somewhere' runs Monday to Friday, 4pm to 7pm at the bar. The venue marked ten years with its 2025 cocktail book 'X'.

Nightjar

A basement speakeasy on City Road that has spent fifteen years at the forefront of London's cocktail scene, peaking at No.2 in the World's 50 Best Bars 2013. The menu is organized by historical era, The Old School (1899 to 1933), Mid-Century Mixology (1934 to 1980) and Modern Classics (1981 to 2015), full of theatrical serves built on rare and vintage spirits, from a lavish Singapore Sling to a five-rum Zombie. Live jazz, blues, swing and funk play every night from 9pm, with the cover charge going directly to the musicians. Smart casual, 21+, one floor below ground.

Dukes

The bar of DUKES LONDON in St James's, a hotel established in 1908, where Alessandro Palazzi and his team make the famous DUKES Martini: mixed tableside from a trolley with frozen spirits and no ice, finished with bespoke vermouth and Amalfi lemon peel. Ian Fleming was a regular, and the bar is reputed to have inspired James Bond's 'shaken, not stirred'. The New York Times called it the hotel bar that some say makes one of the world's best martinis. Dress is smart casual and walk-ins are welcomed.

Punch Room

Punch Room is a small, wood-panelled bar inside The London EDITION on Berners Street in Fitzrovia, built around punches for sharing as well as single cocktails. Its current menu, Echoes, takes classic cocktails as the point of departure and reworks each with unexpected flavor pairings, in serves such as The Third Act, Blue Tie and Bella Vista Punch. It opens Tuesday to Saturday from 5pm and takes reservations.

Nipperkin

An intimate late-night cocktail bar in the basement of NIJŪ, the Japanese restaurant on Berkeley Street, inspired by the Japanese listening bars of the 1950s, vintage records, snug booths. The menu follows British seasonality fused with Japanese spirits and sake, organized into four 'seasons' (Prep, Lean, Plethora and Dry), with serious in-house production: grilled-leek spirit, koji-and-shiso distillate, rosehip and woodruff. Open Thursday to Saturday only.

The Emory Rooftop Bar

The Emory Rooftop Bar sits on the top floor of The Emory, the Maybourne hotel in the steel-masted building that Richard Rogers designed off Hyde Park Corner. The room was designed by Remi Tessier and looks out over Hyde Park and central London. Its cocktail list is created with Tato Giovannoni of Floreria Atlantico in Buenos Aires, each drink a tribute to a London place, person or institution. The bar takes no reservations and sets a minimum spend per person.

Beaufort Wine Bar

Beaufort Wine Bar is The Savoy's house of wine, in the room that traded as the Beaufort Bar, a cocktail bar, until The Savoy relaunched it as Beaufort Wine Bar in 2026. Head Sommelier Romain Audrerie leads a list of more than 250 wines from 18 countries across six continents, with over 120 served by the glass using Coravin. As the Beaufort Bar, the room was ranked in the World's 50 Best Bars in 2012 and 2015.

Bramble

Callooh Callay

A Shoreditch fixture since 2008, named after Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' and famous for the mirrored wardrobe door hiding its back room, plus the JubJub, a bar-within-the-bar. The cocktail list is rebuilt around a new theme every cycle: past menus arrived as cassette tapes and comic books, and the current 'Calloohpoly' names its drinks after East London streets, Monopoly-style. The World's 50 Best counts it among the trailblazers of London's cocktail resurgence.

The Bar With No Name

69 Colebrooke Row, known as The Bar With No Name, is Tony Conigliaro's small, unsigned cocktail bar on a quiet corner just off Essex Road in Islington. The list runs from house cocktails to aperitifs and digestifs, and the room puts on live jazz, blues and rock and roll. The bar also runs cocktail masterclasses and sells its own merchandise online.

Murder Inc

An independent neighborhood cocktail bar on Hanway Street, just north of Soho, self-described as beauty and filth combining in harmony. It serves quality, reasonably priced cocktails that are deliberately uncomplicated but carry a spark of intrigue, made by an experienced bartending team.

Dover Yard

Dover Yard is the bar and lounge of 1 Hotel Mayfair, set at the center of the hotel and overlooking a planted courtyard. The drinks program is built around low waste: an in-house lab turns leftovers into ferments, liqueurs and cordials, such as a sour mash made from the day's spent lemon husks, and the list favours British spirits and seasonal ingredients. DJs play in the evenings, and the bar runs regular guest takeovers.

Velvet by Salvatore Calabrese

A luxury cocktail and Champagne bar at the Corinthia London, created with veteran mixologist Salvatore Calabrese and designed by David Collins Studio. Its current menu, Echoes of Memory, groups theatrical cocktails into four memory-themed chapters, with live music Tuesday to Saturday.

Equal Parts

Equal Parts opened in 2023 in a Grade II listed, green-tiled building on Hackney Road, from the team behind Sager + Wilde, with Carina Soto Velasquez leading the bar. The menu changes every three months: four cocktails made in equal measures sit alongside eight signatures, among them the Flor of vodka, fino sherry and clarified tomato water, plus low and no-alcohol drinks. The back bar leans on European bitters, amari and agave spirits, and a record collection of Afro, psych and Caribbean music plays. Time Out London put it first in its ranking of the city's bars in July 2025.

Kol Mezcalería

The subterranean agave bar beneath KOL, Santiago Lastra's modern Mexican restaurant ranked No.49 in the World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025. Launched in November 2020 with ex-Savoy American Bar head bartender Maxim Schulte building the program, it houses one of the UK's finest collections of agave spirits, mezcal, bacanora and beyond, in the basement of a former police station in Marylebone.

Seed Library

A laid-back cocktail bar by Ryan Chetiyawardana (Mr Lyan) in the basement of the One Hundred Shoreditch hotel. Its drinks embrace stripped-back, analogue techniques with natural variance and a maker's touch, alongside craft beers and wines, with weekend DJ nights.

Vesper at The Dorchester

The Dorchester's bar, designed by Martin Brudnizki with a roaring-thirties feel and named after the martini Ian Fleming invented in Casino Royale. Bar manager Lucia Montanelli's current 'Planetarium' list is a celestial collection, from The Vesper itself to Kepler-22, following her Fibonacci-built 'Eterna' menu, with the 'Vesper Invites' guest-bartender series and live-music Rhythms nights. Open daily noon to 1am; adults only, no sportswear in the evening.

Tayēr + Elementary

Tayēr + Elementary is two bars behind one door at 152 Old Street, run by Alex Kratena and Monica Berg. Elementary, at the front, is a walk-in bar known for cocktails on tap, while Tayēr at the back serves precise, ingredient-led drinks such as the One Sip Martini. The site has been closed since a fire in the building on 5 May 2026, and in September 2026 the owners said it would stay closed for the rest of the year; the team has run pop-ups meanwhile, including a summer residency at Cato in Covent Garden. It was ranked No. 5 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2025.