The Top 28 Places to Drink Near Midsummer House
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Rank 1. The Burleigh Arms
Modern British Pub
A Cambridge gastropub where the head chef's West Indian roots run quietly through an otherwise modern British menu, turning a neighbourhood pub into somewhere you'd actually plan around. The bar side has its own themed cocktail menu, so drinkers aren't an afterthought. Regulars from the surrounding streets mix with people who drove across town, which tells you most of what you need to know.
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A thatched-roof country pub on the Great River Ouse, The Sun has the kind of postcard exterior that makes you wonder if the food can possibly keep up. It does. The kitchen runs its own farm, so "local ingredients" isn't just menu copywriting here. The bar hatch turns out goat curry and fritto misto alongside pints, while the seasonal tasting menu leans into beef shin, smoked trout, and whatever the farm is doing that week.
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Rank 3. The Dog and Pickle
Seafood Pub
Oysters three ways (natural, Rockefeller, tempura) sets the tone early: this is a seafood-leaning gastropub in a quiet Essex village that takes its cooking more seriously than the postcode might suggest. The wood fire runs through much of the menu, from dry-aged beef to Scottish scallops, though beer-battered fish and chips holds its ground alongside the lobster bouillabaisse. The pear tarte tatin with gorgonzola ice cream suggests a kitchen that enjoys keeping you slightly off balance.
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Rank 4. The Silver Cup
Modern British Pub
A gastropub on the Harpenden common that has been pouring pints since the Victorian era, The Silver Cup pairs local ales with modern British cooking that takes seasonal produce seriously. The room is contemporary and relaxed, the kind of place where you can eat well without performing about it. Rooms are available if you'd rather not navigate the train home. It sits in the Top 50 Gastropubs list and is selected by the Michelin Guide.
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The white weatherboarded facade is hard to miss on the village green, and the low salvaged beams inside make it feel like the pub has been standing forever, because it more or less has. The Hoop is a proper Essex country gastropub: real fires, friendly but not sloppy service, and daily menus that lean French and Italian while keeping toad-in-the-hole firmly on the card. Wash it down with a local ale and nobody will judge you.
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Rank 6. The Red Lion and Sun
Modern British Pub
The daily menu goes live online at 11am, which tells you something about how seriously this Highgate gastropub takes its kitchen. Produce comes from Highgate Butchers and a careful roster of suppliers, and the wine list has a reputation that pulls people in from well beyond N6. White walls and light wood give it a New England boathouse feel, and on Sundays the roasts fill every table by early afternoon. Ranked third in the Top 50 Gastropubs.
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The team behind Anchor & Hope, the Waterloo gastropub that quietly set the template for London pub dining, brought this Victorian corner pub to Stoke Newington Church Street. Original panelling meets brick, the doors fold out onto a courtyard, and the kitchen sends out boldly flavoured, generously portioned food, the kind of cooking that makes a shared pie feel like the obvious choice. The deli near the exit is easy to miss and worth not missing.
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Rank 8. The Suffield Arms
Mediterranean Pub
The art on the walls ranges from tasteful to genuinely startling, which sets the tone for a place that refuses to be one thing. The Suffield Arms is a Mediterranean gastropub spread across sharply different rooms: a Victorian bar with local ales and a pool table, a plush cocktail saloon upstairs, and a bright tapas restaurant at the back serving patatas bravas, pizzas, and larger plates. It landed on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, which tracks.
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The blood-red leather chairs and black marble fireplace make it clear this is not a bar you stumble into. Le Salon Bar sits on the third floor of Joel Robuchon's London restaurant, reached by an escorted lift ride that does set a tone. The Art Deco room is operatically good-looking, all alligator leather tables and studied drama. Order something with ambition and don't check your phone too obviously.
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Rank 11. Union Street Cafe
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 12. UnderDog
Beer Bar
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.
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A corner pub on Northcote Road with bare wooden tables and plank walls that give it more country-inn energy than Battersea terrace. The glass-roofed dining room out back has an open fireplace for winter and air-conditioning for summer, which covers the meteorological bases as well as any London pub can. Pavement tables with heaters and an awning stretch the outdoor season considerably. Part of the Three Cheers group.
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Rank 14. The Jolly Butchers
Beer Bar
A curtain just inside the door does a surprising amount of heavy lifting, shifting the mood from Stoke Newington high street to somewhere vaguely central European. This Hackney ale and cider house packs its tables with people in their late twenties and thirties who take the draught list seriously, and they have reason to: real ales, craft beers, stouts, lagers, and ciders stretch across a bar that nearly spans the room.
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A blood-red leather chesterfield and a pair of wingback chairs anchor the centre of this Victorian gastropub, tucked down a back street between Archway and Tufnell Park. Exposed brick, antique mirrors, an open fireplace, and a cosy yard out back make it feel more like a found object than a designed one. The kind of pub that rewards the ten-minute walk from the tube.
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The white weatherboarded building juts so far into Spaniards Road that traffic through Hampstead Heath has been yielding to it for centuries, and both the pub and the old toll keeper's cottage opposite are listed, so that's not changing. This is a classic English pub on the edge of the Heath, the kind where a long walk through the trees earns a pint at a very old bar. Dick Turpin drank here, allegedly, which every old London pub says but fewer can almost prove.
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Rank 18. Jones and Sons
British Coffee
A marble-topped, oak-clad bar inside a former Victorian textiles factory in Dalston, Jones and Sons is a coffee-forward bar that skews grown-up in a neighborhood that usually skews otherwise. White walls, concrete, and salvaged light fittings land somewhere between Scandinavian spare and genuinely warm. The crowd arrives for good coffee and a proper drink, not to perform coolness at a venue with pretensions to grit.
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Rank 19. High Water
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 20. Rita's Bar and Dining
Southern
Concrete floors, exposed pipes, and a crowd that collectively owns more frames without lenses than an optician's skip. Rita's is a bar and diner in Dalston where the vibe is studied-casual and the southern fried chicken arrives, charmingly, in a brown paper bag. The room is intentionally unfinished but lands warmer than it has any right to. Order a drink, find a table, and try not to feel self-conscious about your prescription glasses.
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Rank 21. All Star Lanes Whiteley's
American
Tucked beneath Whiteley's shopping centre, this retro bowling bar leans hard into the American theme, right down to what is reportedly London's largest bourbon selection. Diner food runs all evening, burgers and steaks and serious desserts, but the real draw is the lanes themselves, where celebratory knee slides are not uncommon. Karaoke nights have since joined the rotation for anyone whose competitive spirit lives in their vocal cords.
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Rank 22. Megaro
Cocktail Bar
Blown-up photography canvases cover one wall, and the other is dressed up as a darkroom, because someone had to commit to a theme. This basement cocktail bar sits beneath a hotel opposite King's Cross and St Pancras, all heavy blacks, deep reds, and curtains swagged dramatically around certain tables. The menu arrives on wooden photographic plates. The cocktail list is short and tightly edited, which tends to mean fewer misses.
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Rank 23. Bar 55
Cocktail Bar
The cocktail menu is daubed in red paint on the wall, which sets a certain tone. Bar 55 is a small, unhurried cocktail bar on Stoke Newington Road that doubles as a cafe by day, with colourful chandeliers, bare wooden boards, and enough Victorian parlour atmosphere to feel deliberate rather than accidental. Look for the London road signs on the frontage; the name itself won't give you much. A basement handles private events when the mood calls for it.
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Rank 24. Viva Tapas y Bebidas
Spanish
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.
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The stamp you get at the door has been described as lewd, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about Dalston Superstore. This long, thin bar runs from brunch into the small hours, with a rotating DJ lineup that spans gay club nights, drag, and Bowie appreciation evenings, each with its own crowd to match. The bar dominates one wall; the decor leans deliberately unfinished.
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