The Best Places in the United Kingdom

A stripped-back Kingsland Road pub with live jazz and zero posturing, which is a rarer combination than it should be. One big open room on the ground floor, a terrace for smokers, and a crowd young enough to keep the energy up even on a slow Tuesday. Weekends get properly heaving. It wasn't always a traditional boozer, but it plays the part well enough that nobody seems to mind.

Dealers in sharp uniforms working the blackjack tables are visible from the bar, which sets the tone for an evening here. The Hippodrome is a casino complex near Leicester Square with a handful of bars scattered across its floors, two of which serve proper cocktails. No membership required, just the doormen's approval, which keeps things feeling a little cinematic. The gaming floor isn't the point if cards bore you, but it does make for a good backdrop.

The shutters go up on Saturday mornings and that's the only schedule that matters here. Kernel is a craft brewery tap under a Bermondsey railway arch, open one day a week, where you can taste before you buy and then stay to drink in a makeshift beer hall next door. Mismatched furniture, no frills, and a crowd that arrived knowing exactly what they wanted before they walked in.

Candles stuck in wax-crusted bottles flicker under mismatched lampshades at this Tooley Street local, which has the look of a pub that never quite decided whether to go gastropub or stay a straightforward boozer. It landed somewhere in the middle, and mostly that's fine. The cask ales are the reason to come, with a rotating handful on tap and Green King IPA holding down a permanent stool at the bar.

A proper old pub tucked up the alley off Garrick Street, the kind of passage you'd walk past a hundred times without noticing. On warm evenings the narrow lane fills with after-work drinkers spilling out from the bar. The back room was once called the Bucket of Blood, a nickname it earned honestly from the bare-knuckle bouts held there. John Dryden got badly beaten in the alley in 1679; the upstairs room carries his name now, which is a fairly distinguished memorial for a mugging.

Blackboards cover the walls at this stripped-back Primrose Hill pub, spelling out what's on draft and what's coming out of the kitchen. The large main room runs to wooden tables and a loose scatter of modern art, with a dining room upstairs doubling as a jazz venue on the right nights. The menu leans Modern European with a strong Italian pull, and the pizzas have a following among the locals who fill the place most evenings.

The menu opens with a Lincoln quote about beer and God, which sets the tone pretty well for this Islington bar on the corner of Pentonville Road. American craft bottles line up alongside a solid draught selection, but the real draw is the bourbon list, which runs to over fifty bottles and generates the kind of quiet, decisive ordering you see when regulars already know exactly what they want.

The entrance is underneath a kebab shop, and yes, a wrong turn puts you in the kitchen. Make the right one and you're in a dimly lit basement cocktail bar where stacked crates form the booths and rough wooden planks pass for seating. It reads less shabby-chic and more genuinely cobbled-together, which suits the bottled cocktails and serious spirits on offer. Hackney locals who know where the door is fill the place without much fuss.

A top-hatted doorman on Clipstone Street marks the stairs down to this Fitzrovia basement bar, where the name blends Lucky Luciano with Prohibition-era "blind pig" speakeasies. The distressed interior mixes shabby chic with Chinoiserie, curtained banquettes tucked into a mini-cellar below. Menus arrive dressed as a 1957 jazz magazine, which sets a mood the drinks list is better at sustaining than the inside pages are.

Parked halfway between Liverpool's two cathedrals, The Magnet is a late-night bar that's been around long enough to mean something to the city's music scene. The stag-and-hen circuit doesn't reach this far up Hardman Street, which is either a mild inconvenience or the whole point, depending on who you ask. Tokyo Industries owns it now, post-refit, but the bones of the place carry fifty years of noise.

The license starts at 6am so Borough Market workers can get a pint in before most of London has had breakfast. This old-school pub on Stoney Street has been around forever and keeps a serious cask ale selection, pump clips covering the walls and rafters like wallpaper someone forgot to stop hanging. The burgundy paint and bare wooden floor make it feel lived-in without trying too hard, and it draws a crowd that actually uses the market, not just photographs it.

The pub that claims to be the oldest on the Thames sits on Rotherhithe Street with its feet practically in the river, all low beams and the distinct feeling that the floorboards have heard some things. The Mayflower is named for the ship that carried the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World, and their captain is buried just up the road. Come for a pint, stay because leaving requires more willpower than the room tends to inspire.

Old school lockers with graffiti line the walls, a chopper bike leans against something, and a ghetto blaster sits where a till might otherwise be. This Bermondsey cocktail bar runs its menu by school subject, so the Cosmopolitan lives under History and the Hemingway Daiquiri files under English, which is the kind of logic that rewards a second drink. Tonka trucks and 80s nostalgia do the decorating; flair bartending does the rest.

Seven thousand square feet of bar in the shadow of the HSBC tower means The Parlour runs at a particular frequency: suits, pints, and the debrief after a long day of staring at screens. The industrial bones of the room are softened just enough by reclaimed pine, warm lamps, and a Japanese screen-style back bar. When the nearby towers empty, the long communal tables fill fast, and the overspill heads straight for the terrace.

A classic neighborhood pub at the foot of Greenwich Park, sitting directly on the Meridian Line, which means the observatory's laser passes right over your head on a clear night if you take a table in the back garden. It's tucked far enough down a back street that the tourist tide rarely reaches it, making it the kind of old-school local that rewards anyone willing to wander a little past the obvious sights.

A 200-year-old Irish clock rescued from a town hall anchors the center of this sprawling Covent Garden pub, which runs across several levels and roughly 13,500 square feet of copper pipes, rivet-covered steel, and brass fittings. The beer list runs to around 180 bottles from around the world, plus nine unpasteurised draught ales brewed by the Irish owners back in Dublin. It's the kind of place where choosing a round takes longer than drinking it.

A Young's pub beside Battersea Park, The Prince Albert draws the post-walk crowd, strollers, dogs, and all, who come for roughly 30 wines by the glass and a rotating lineup of locally sourced ales. The spirit list stays fairly simple, but the wine selection and a proper Sunday roast keep the well-heeled Battersea contingent coming back. It's the kind of place that rewards having a dog more than a cocktail shaker.

The curved etched-glass windows haven't changed since the Victorians were sorting themselves by class, and inside this Maida Vale pub the mahogany bar is still partitioned into five zones: the Public, the Gentlemen's, the Ladies', the Private, and the Snug. The half-height doors between them remain, which means you can drift from compartment to compartment, pint in hand, pretending the social order no longer applies.

The bar at Jumeirah Carlton Tower has been pulled from the edges of the room and planted center stage, which pretty much tells you everything about the ambition of the redesign. Martin Brudnizki swapped tired hotel fabrics for leather finishes and a surprisingly funky soundtrack, and the drinks menu orbits a loosely English countryside theme with a soft spot for London dandies. Knightsbridge prices, naturally.

Reclaimed church pews and maroon walls set the mood in this Victorian corner pub, which spends its days as a quiet local serving food and coffee before steadily shifting gears toward a DJ-led night. The mix of office workers, pre-clubbers, gay and straight regulars somehow coalesces into a single collective energy that lands the moment you walk in. Mismatched furniture, candles, the faint suggestion of gastro-pub ambition, and a party by midnight.

Old enamel advertising signs cover the walls, and the whole room reads like a neighborhood pub that's been in the same family forever. It isn't one, though: The Star at Night is a cocktail bar, now gin-focused, with its own gin club for the committed. Tucked into the backstreets of Soho, it has the ease of a well-worn local and the drinks list of somewhere that takes the glass in your hand seriously.

A big Victorian corner pub across from the Imperial War Museum, with stained glass dark enough to make afternoon feel like closing time. The cask ale selection is solid if unremarkable, and the food reputation that once drew people in walked out the door with the chef who built it. Come for the atmosphere and a pint, not a dining occasion, and you'll leave in better shape than if you'd expected otherwise.

Patterned carpets and stained glass windows set the tone at this old-school Birmingham pub, which somehow survived the gastropub wave with its character intact. It's a proper boozer on John Bright Street, with a ground-floor bar that feels genuinely lived-in and an upstairs lounge where the programming swings between stand-up comedy, poetry nights, and touring bands depending on the week.

The ornate plasterwork here has been picked out in gold and white against black walls and ceiling, turning an already grand Victorian room into something that feels like a Gothic ballroom that never quite went home. This cocktail bar sits inside the same building as the Cafe Royal, though it keeps its own moody, theatrical atmosphere. Five rooms and three bars total, with live music and cabaret filling the back spaces when the evening calls for it.

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.

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.

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.