The Best Places to Drink and Do in the United Kingdom

The south-facing terrace is the whole game here, filling up even when the temperature argues otherwise with the kind of Notting Hill crowd that treats being seen as a leisure activity. Inside, this corner pub leans into shabby-cool: green leather banquettes, mismatched old wooden furniture, fairy lights overhead, and walls thick with artwork. It has the bones of an ordinary local and the atmosphere of somewhere that knows it no longer is.

The square island bar takes up so much floor space a modern designer would have a small crisis, but that's rather the point at this back-street Waterloo pub. Dark wood panelling and mismatched dining chairs sit alongside 70s light fittings and what the décor trade might call "sparkly dangly bits." It's an old boozer that's had a gentle gastropub makeover without losing the feeling that it's been here forever and plans to stay.

A walled beer garden on Bermondsey Street is a rare thing, and The Woolpack has one, complete with picnic tables, bamboo fencing, and a parasol heroic enough to deny the British weather. Inside, the booths run along original tiled walls uncovered during a refurb, and the overall vibe is 70s utilitarian rather than anything a designer touched. A proper pub, unpretentious and unapologetic about it.

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.

A small doorway on Pelham Street opens onto a staircase, which is your only warning before you arrive at a two-floor cocktail bar and blues club with a spit-and-sawdust soul. Drinks come from a tiny bar tucked under the stairs, and the menu runs to combinations that would raise an eyebrow elsewhere, Campari and Patron XO among them, pulled off with more confidence than the setting suggests. There is also a £35 cocktail called Barry Big Bollocks.

A narrow old pub on Wapping High Street that's been around long enough to have its own hanging judge lore, which the regulars will tell you about unprompted. Judge Jeffreys sentenced hundreds here in the 17th century, and the gallows sat out back. These days, that back terrace leads straight to the Thames, the view partly obscured, the atmosphere several centuries deep. One of the older riverside pubs in London, and the kind that earns the description without trying.

A hostel bar turned Shoreditch cocktail den, Translate keeps things unfussy: wooden bar, exposed brick, drinks on a blackboard. The cocktail list leans playful, mixing rum, chocolate milk, and whipped cream alongside tequila-coconut builds that suggest the bartenders are having fun. Kingsland Road's southern stretch draws a crowd that's here to settle in, not to be seen, which makes it a useful place to actually get a seat.

A manga mural covers an entire wall of this Broughton Street bar, which somehow feels bright and airy even when you wander in after midnight. Light decor, doors propped open to the street, and cheerful staff all contribute to the mood, though probably in unknowable proportions. The pink and blue button-upholstered toilet doors have reportedly stumped at least one visitor, which tells you something about the clientele.

The entrance is a hinged picture frame in a stairwell that appears to lead nowhere, which sets the tone pretty well. UnderDog is a low-lit, deliberately scuffed speakeasy-style cocktail bar tucked beneath the Bethnal Green BrewDog, and the brewery doesn't advertise it at all. Just ask to be taken downstairs. The drinks lean toward beer, as you'd expect given the parentage, but the hidden-door theatrics justify turning up curious.

Nine vaulted alcoves run beneath the pavement near Blackfriars, each lined with digital wallpaper depicting Champagne cellars and sized for two to eight people, which covers a lot of ground socially. This basement cocktail bar sits below the Crowne Plaza and draws the post-work crowd into its main space, where a long bar, big banquettes, and a resident DJ keep things moving. One of the few places in central London where you can still smoke inside your private vault.

The lounge bar sits up a few steps to the right as you walk in, salvaged timber and exposed metal doing the heavy lifting on atmosphere. Village East was an early arrival on Bermondsey Street before the White Cube moved in and the expensive-small-thing shops followed, so there's a confident ease here that the newer neighbours are still working on. The restaurant fills the main floor; this is the bar, and it reads like one.

Cymbals hang over the bar counter as makeshift lampshades, and ghetto blasters dot the room with the confidence of someone who knows the bit lands. Villager is a cocktail bar spread across two converted shops on George IV Bridge, split between a loungy sofa-and-palms side and a livelier bar room. The cocktails are the point; the wine and lager list is just there so nobody feels left out.

A Spanish cocktail and tapas bar on a Stoke Newington corner where the surrounding block runs almost exclusively Turkish. Inside, kitsch furniture and bare brick set the scene for a rum and tequila-forward menu that leans into the classics while making room for wilder combinations. The tables are small and close together, which means the room feels busy even when it isn't, and the low lighting at night does its job.

Every surface in this Northern Quarter bar is painted: murals and polka dots on the walls, stripes on the floor, flowers on the bar. When the rest of Manchester's drinking scene is busy doing moody prohibition chic, Walrus arrives in a Hawaiian shirt. The art out front sets the tone, a red-headed figure clutching a fish with the quiet confidence of someone who has already won the argument about interior design.

The Wheatsheaf sits right at the edge of Borough Market, which means the Friday afternoon crowd has usually come straight from a cheese stall. It's a pub with reclaimed wood tables on flagstones, pastel panelling that nods to a Shaker kitchen, and a vintage frontage that somehow outlasted Thameslink construction work overhead. The vibe is designer rustic, the pints are cold, and the location does most of the heavy lifting.

Chrome-topped bar, white marble front, stools that look like they'll punish you by the second drink but somehow don't. Yauatcha's ground-floor cocktail bar is a relatively recent addition, carved out at the back of the room after someone noticed the basement was already producing thousands of drinks a week and thought perhaps a proper bar was in order. The crowd drifts in from Soho looking like they've made a decision, not a reservation.

A long black-and-grey bar faces the door of this cocktail bar tucked into the foyer of Gordon Ramsay's Camden townhouse hotel, high-backed armchairs pulled close to a fireplace nearby. The 22-drink menu runs classic martinis through fizzes and long drinks, which is a sensible range for a room that pulls in both hotel guests and locals who've discovered the armchairs are quite hard to leave.

A cocktail bar tucked inside Harrods, where every drink arrives in a crystal glass made by Baccarat, which you can then buy on your way out if the mood strikes. Velvet, chandeliers, and a tight menu of high-end cocktails set the register firmly at "what's another round." Small plates from the Harrods kitchen round things out. It is, in short, a bar that knows exactly what it's doing and charges accordingly.

A flower-filled pool and a buzzing bar greet you on the way up to this Mayfair Indian dining room, which holds a Michelin star and pulls a crowd split evenly between power lunches and date nights. The chef's cooking takes Indian tradition somewhere more restless and precise, with the sourcing doing a lot of the quiet work. Private rooms make it a favorite with the suits, but the room itself earns the evening on its own.

A scale model of Concorde suspended from the ceiling sets the tone at this rooftop fine dining room inside The Peninsula, named after the Surrey racetrack and decorated accordingly. Claude Bosi's team turns out precise, unhurried cooking built around British ingredients, Lake District lamb and Cornish squid given the kind of attention that earned the restaurant two Michelin stars. Floor-to-ceiling windows open onto a terrace with views to match the ambition.

From the outside it still reads as a pub, the kind that's been anchoring this Barbican-edge block forever, but step inside and you're somewhere considerably more considered. The Martin brothers have a habit of rescuing tired City boozers and returning them better dressed and better behaved than they found them. Difford's Guide has taken note. The crowd tends toward suits loosening their collars after six, which feels exactly right.

The Guinness is poured properly and the Irish whiskey list is taken seriously, which tells you most of what you need to know about this cocktail bar on Essex Road. Homeboy leans into modern Irish hospitality without winking about it, so expect a crowd that actually knows what they ordered. Live music most nights of the week, DJs on weekends, and rugby on a screen big enough to matter.

The crudo bar at this sleek Mayfair spot is the reason to pull up a stool rather than a chair. It's an Italian bar with serious cocktail credentials, Difford's Guide, listed, set inside a room that manages to feel both polished and relaxed. The terrace catches good light. Order something cold, eat something raw, and let the elegant surroundings do what elegant surroundings in Mayfair always do: make you feel you've made excellent decisions.

Santiago Lastra's Michelin-starred Marylebone restaurant runs on a single conviction: Mexican soul, British ingredients. Nearly everything on the tasting menu is sourced from the UK, with sea buckthorn standing in for lime where lime won't grow. The wine list leans into Slovakia, Georgia, and Croatia rather than the usual suspects, and the final courses move downstairs to a mezcaleria that smells exactly like you'd hope.

Four floors of whisky obsession in the shadow of Spitalfields Market, with a thousand drams on the ground floor and a basement cocktail bar, The Proofing Room, named for the bakery that occupied the space before the war. The cocktails lean on the original Soho location's Vault recipes, so the Coconut Butter Old Fashioned travels well. Above it all, a private members club with a cigar terrace, for those who like their evenings to escalate.

Rock star prints cover the walls of this packed cocktail bar on Merrion Street, and the music is loud enough that you're basically shouting your order. Mojo has no interest in delicate Martinis or hushed appreciation, and the crowd packing in seems grateful for that. Chunky glasses of fruity, generously poured cocktails do the work, shots fill the gaps, and the whole thing runs on a holiday-bar energy that somehow never feels try-hard.