The Best Tiki Bars in the United Kingdom

Cork tiles, shag pile, and Zombies served in tiki mugs: Trailer Happiness is a basement cocktail bar in Notting Hill that leans hard into mid-century Californian trailer-park kitsch and never apologizes for it. The room feels like a bachelor pad that got stuck in 1966 and decided to stay, which is more or less the point. Rum drinks and tiki culture are the whole religion down here, and the vol-au-vent energy is entirely real.

Wicker chairs spill onto Frederick Street, which is the only hint you'll get from above that there's a full tiki bar below. Once you cross the little bridge and descend, the room opens into bamboo, Polynesian kitsch, and nautical bric-a-brac stacked deep enough to suggest someone had strong feelings about the tropics and a very generous budget. A reliably committed tiki bar in the middle of Edinburgh's New Town, which is a sentence that didn't need to exist but does.

Two floors of Polynesian-themed basement beneath Mayfair, where the "Lanai Lounge" comes lined with black bamboo and lauhala mats, and the "Aloha Party Room" below that pairs orange banquettes with 1970s lampshades. This is a tiki bar, not a quiet drinks spot, and the crowd arriving in evening wear to dance to funky tunes seems entirely unbothered by the contradiction. Come dressed for a party, because the room certainly has.

Canoes hang from the ceiling and buoys sway above the bar, which should tell you everything about what kind of tiki cocktail bar this is. Been around forever in the basement of the London Hilton, Trader Vic's leans fully into the bamboo-and-carved-heads fantasy without a flicker of irony. The menu is vast, rum and pineapple run through most of it, and nothing strays off-brand. Order something with an umbrella in it and commit.

A rolled-up parchment menu is how they present the cocktail list in this dimly lit basement tiki bar on Bath Street, and it suits the room, which runs to cane chairs, wicker walls, and hurricane lamps. The dozen classic tiki drinks cover Mai Tais and a Rum Bongo for the nostalgically inclined, while the Blingin' Berry Champagne Punch arrives with a full bottle and serves four, which is either efficient or alarming depending on your Tuesday.