The Top 100 Places to Drink Near The White Hart Inn
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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 2. The Unruly Pig
Modern British Pub
Beamed ceilings, log burners, and modern art on the walls set the tone at this gastropub in rural Suffolk, a short drive from Woodbridge. The kitchen leans British with a Mediterranean streak, changing the menu monthly and running daily specials off local coastal suppliers. More than sixty wines are available by the glass, which keeps things lively. It sits at number two on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, for those keeping score.
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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 Sportsman
Modern British Pub
A whitewashed pub on a windswept sea wall in Kent, where the chef makes his own salt by boiling seawater from the beach out back. The slip sole grilled in seaweed butter has become quietly famous, which the chef hates, because he doesn't believe in signature dishes. A Michelin-starred gastropub that somehow stays a proper pub, with locals nursing pints alongside pilgrims who've driven two hours for the tasting menu and pretend they haven't.
- Michelin Guide 1 Star
- Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #26 · Top 50 Gastropubs
- National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #58 · The National Restaurant Awards
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Hand-painted walls and an enormous rum selection do their best to conjure a Thai beach shack, which is an ambitious brief for a spot off a main road in central Birmingham. Island is a cocktail bar where the menu is organized by base spirit, running from a Piña Colada through to a Boston Sour. The vibe is deliberately groovy and unhurried, which helps you settle in while you decide whether to commit to the rum.
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Rank 6. Fordwich Arms
Modern British Pub
Fordwich sits in a claim to fame as England's smallest town, and this ivy-clad Arts and Crafts pub beside the River Stour punches well above its postcode. A wood-topped bar and open fires give way to a panelled dining room where the cooking is modern and occasionally playful without letting cleverness override flavour. The kitchen leans hard on Kentish producers. It holds a Michelin star.
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A gastropub in a Kentish village with eight bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen that takes the local-seasonal brief seriously. The crab and smoked eel crumpet is the kind of opening move that sets the tone, and the menu moves confidently from there. Eight rooms mean overnight guests fill tables without anyone rushing them out. Ranked twelfth on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, which is the sort of company that draws a knowing crowd down Canterbury Road.
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Rank 8. Satan's Whiskers
Cocktail Bar
Taxidermy on the walls, vintage booze ads by candlelight, and hip-hop on the sound system: Satan's Whiskers is a Bethnal Green cocktail bar that looks grungy from the outside and somewhat like hell from the inside, in the best possible sense. The menu changes daily, so regulars who've memorized the classics are always slightly off-balance. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars and has done the top-slot thing at Top 50 Cocktail Bars more than once.
- 50 Best #21 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
- 50 Best #11 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
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Rank 9. Tayēr + Elementary
Cocktail Bar
One cocktail bar split into two very different moods. Elementary faces the street with draft Old Fashioneds and Aquavit on tap, a One Sip Martini menu, and prices that won't require a sit-down afterward. Pass through the partition and Tayēr goes darker and quieter, with seasonal menus that change fast and ingredients that lean toward the unusual. The brutalist concrete and exposed steel read warmer than they should. Ranked fifth on the World's 50 Best Bars.
- 50 Best #5 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
- 50 Best #12 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
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The house martini arrives before you've settled in, which tells you everything about the bar at this Shoreditch Town Hall restaurant. It's a place to drink while the open kitchen fires on all cylinders around you, the kind of pre-dinner perch that makes waiting feel like the point. The room carries the weight of the old civic building without taking itself too seriously, and the team moves like they've done this a few thousand times.
- Michelin Guide 2 Stars
- 50 Best #86 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
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Rank 11. Waltz
Japanese Cocktail Bar
The elm counter runs eight metres and seats a dozen, which matters because where you sit shapes what you drink at this Japanese cocktail bar in Shoreditch. Counter seats unlock the full menu, split between seasonal pours and "Evergreen" cocktails built on fermentation, carbonation, and centrifugal clarification. The seasonal side nods to Japan's 72 micro-seasons. Ranked fifth on Top 50 Cocktail Bars, it pulls a crowd that knows the difference.
- 50 Best #23 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
- Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026 · #5 · Top 50 Cocktail Bars
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New International Cocktail Bar
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Rank 12. EQUAL PARTS
Cocktail Bar
A rotating menu, a backbar built around agave spirits, and a crate of rare records that actually gets played: this Hackney Road cocktail bar has a lot going on without feeling like it's trying. The whole team develops the drinks together, which gives the staff something to say about every bottle on the shelf. It landed at number 26 on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list, if that helps calibrate expectations. Open seven days.
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Rank 14. 40 Maltby Street
Mediterranean Wine Bar
A wine bar tucked under the railway arches in Bermondsey, where the menu is a chalkboard, reservations don't exist, and the wine comes from a natural-leaning importer operating out of the same warehouse. Around a dozen small plates change daily, running from terrines and seasonal salads to something more substantial, and the idea is to order the lot and share. First-come seating keeps it lively, and nobody here seems to mind waiting.
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- National Restaurant Awards 2026 · #72 · The National Restaurant Awards
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Rank 15. 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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Rank 16. The Marksman
British Pub
The brown-tiled facade on Hackney Road hides a gastropub that genuinely runs on two speeds: a wood-panelled bar downstairs that feels like it hasn't shifted since the 1970s, and a calmer dining room upstairs where the kitchen, staffed by alumni of St. JOHN, turns out proudly seasonal British cooking. The philosophy is that eating should never feel like a hushed ordeal, and the menu, built around dressed crab and proper Sunday roasts, argues the point quietly but well.
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #23 · Top 50 Gastropubs
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 17. The Baring
European Mediterranean Pub
A stripped-back Islington gastropub that Grace Dent called a benchmark for where pub dining is heading. Stools at the bar for a pint of Five Points and a snack, tables for a proper meal built around seasonal ingredients cooked simply and plated with care. The chef came up through Dabbous, which explains why the food feels more considered than the room lets on. Sunday roasts, organic wines, and a cocktail list that includes a Hogweed Martini, if you're feeling adventurous.
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Rank 18. Three Sheets
Cocktail Bar
The menu is split into One Sheet, Two Sheets, and Three Sheets, which tells you exactly the kind of cocktail bar this Dalston spot is: knowing, a little cheeky, and very good at drinks. The Venning brothers have built something deliberately unfussy, with a tight seasonal list that changes often enough to reward repeat visits. Ranked 32nd on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list, it draws a crowd that actually reads the menu rather than defaulting to a gin and tonic.
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Rank 19. The Knave of Clubs
British
A Grade II listed corner pub on Bethnal Green Road that spent decades as a restaurant before someone had the sense to bring back the Guinness. Downstairs is a proper East End boozer built around a rotisserie grill; upstairs, One Club Row takes the room somewhere closer to a New York tavern by way of a French brasserie. Pre-batched negronis and a short wine list round things out for the Shoreditch crowd who like their gastropubs with a little ambition.
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Rank 20. Hawksmoor
British Steakhouse
The basement cocktail bar beneath the original Hawksmoor steakhouse, tucked under Spitalfields on Commercial Street. The drinks are complex but the staff wear it lightly, which is either the charm or the whole point. Named for the architect whose Christ Church looms just down the road, though the vibe runs more candlelit den than baroque monument. A five-star rating from Difford's Guide gives you a sense of how seriously the team takes a good cocktail.
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Rank 21. Happiness Forgets
Cocktail Bar
Painted concrete steps and a metal railing are the only entrance to this basement cocktail bar under Hoxton Square, which has been called the bartender's bar in London without anyone arguing too hard. The room is small and rough around the edges, guests are seated and served at the table rather than propped at the bar, and the drinks are precisely the kind that make you forget you walked down stairs to get them.
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Rank 22. The Bucks Head
British Pub
A Kentish country gastropub where the steak list leans on Ightham beef, with côte de boeuf cuts cooked for sharing, and the bar snacks include a venison and nduja Scotch egg that has no business being that good. The menu runs from battered fish and chips to roasted chalk stream trout, all of it grounded firmly in the surrounding countryside. It landed on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, which tracks for a place that manages to feel genuinely local rather than aspirationally rural.
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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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The jet-black exterior marks this Newington Green gastropub from a distance, and the no-reservations policy means you either luck into a cosy booth or end up at a communal table getting absorbed into someone else's evening. Seasonal cocktails, natural wines, and well-kept ales cover the drinks side thoroughly, while the kitchen leans into the kind of confident, unfussy cooking that makes you order another round just to keep eating.
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Rank 25. City Social
Modern European New American
Floor-to-ceiling glass on the 24th floor of Tower 42 catches the sunset over southwest London, which is a reliable trick. This cocktail bar is done up like a gentleman's club, all dark wood paneling, leather chairs, and golden library lamps, and the suited City crowd fills it as if central casting sent them over. It's part of Jason Atherton's group, so the drinks are competent and taken seriously.
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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 27. Union Street Cafe
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 28. SOMA Canary Wharf
Indian
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Rank 29. Sager and Wilde
Wine Bar
The bar top is cast from old pavement lights, and the water carafes are repurposed gin bottles, which tells you everything about the aesthetic before you've ordered. Sager and Wilde is a candlelit wine bar on Hackney Road, bare brick and unpretentious, where the list is the whole point. Early evenings, light cuts through the Venetian blinds at a mood-appropriate angle; after that, candles take over and the room does the rest.
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Rank 30. The Cocktail Trading Co.
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 32. Nightjar
Cocktail Bar
You book online and put a card down just to get through the door, which tells you something about how seriously Nightjar takes itself as a cocktail bar. The pre-war speakeasy atmosphere on City Road runs to live jazz, blues, ragtime, and the occasional cabaret set, so you're choosing between a quiet corner for the drinks or a front-row seat to the whole production. Either way, the program is the point.
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The bar bills still come printed from "The Bar With No Name Ltd," even though there's now a branded canopy outside giving the whole speakeasy game away. This tiny cocktail bar on a quiet Islington corner seats fewer than forty, so ring ahead. Inside, eight green industrial lamps hang spider-like over a two-tone room that lands somewhere between 1950s Italian café and serious molecular mixology den, which is a combination nobody else is attempting.
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Rank 34. 5CC at the Well and Bucket
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 35. Morgan Arms
Gastropub British
A steel grid on the end wall doubles as a gallery, local art priced and ready to go home with you. This is a proper East End corner pub, all comfy sofas and battered wooden tables, sitting among Victorian terraces just off Mile End Road. Gastro pubs tend to cluster where the money already is, so its presence in Bow says something about the neighbourhood's direction of travel, though regulars seem unbothered by the symbolism.
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A corner pub on the south bank, one building shy of Tower Bridge, with a beer list that leans hard into cask and craft. The room has been freshened up from its former smoke-stained self, lime green seating and all, though the bones of an old London boozer are still there. Tourists coming off the bridge mix with local office workers who'd rather not admit they work next to the Mayor.
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The Sunday flower market on Columbia Road starts right at The Birdcage's corner, which means this old East End pub spent years famous almost entirely for its postcode. Gentrification caught up with the street eventually, and the surrounding restaurants and bars have turned it into a nightly destination rather than a once-a-week pitstop. A proper neighbourhood pub, worn in the right ways, with a crowd that arrived before the area did.
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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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Brown and white Victorian factory tiles wrap the corner exterior of this Spitalfields pub, a former industrial boozer that had its brickwork stripped bare and its bar topped in zinc during a thoughtful renovation years ago. Named after the 17th-century herbalist who lived nearby, it sits opposite Middlesex Street Market and carries its history lightly, the kind of place that looks like it always looked this way, which is the highest compliment a pub can get.
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Rank 44. NOLA
New Orleans Cocktail Bar
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Rank 45. Callooh Callay
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar on Rivington Street that takes its name from the Jabberwocky poem, which sets expectations correctly: the room is smaller than it looks, then larger than it should be, with a wardrobe somewhere in the middle that leads somewhere else. The Mad Hatter aesthetic could easily tip into theme-park territory, but the drinks keep it honest. Shoreditch has no shortage of bars pretending to have personality; this one at least has a family portrait on the wall.
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Rank 46. Joyeux Bordel
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 47. Discount Suit Company
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 49. The Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town
Cocktail Bar
You get into this basement cocktail bar by walking through a Smeg fridge in the back of The Breakfast Club. Ask quietly at the door whether there's room downstairs, because the whole point is that it's a secret, and they'll let you hold that fiction together. Below, rough wood, vintage posters, and unsettling dolls set the mood, while the bathroom wallpaper is an education in one-hit wonders and deeply regrettable 1980s haircuts.
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Rank 50. The Princess of Shoreditch
Beer Bar
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Rank 51. The Smokehouse
Barbecue
Meat butchered on site, much of it smoked or grilled over charcoal, is the reason a forgotten backstreet boozer in Canonbury became somewhere people make a point of visiting. The Smokehouse looks like a pub from the outside, and it mostly is, though the inside skews closer to a restaurant than a proper dive. It sits at a fork in the road a short walk from Highbury Corner, which is exactly the kind of neighborhood detail that makes locals feel smug about where they live.
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Rank 52. The Dean Swift
Beer Bar
A corner pub in Bermondsey where the Victorian bones are still visible under a liberal coat of white paint, with crystal chandeliers doing their best to class the place up. The beer list leans heavily London-brewed, and the room fills fast with warehouse-flat residents and office workers who treat it like a local because it is one. Named for the satirist dean himself, which feels right for a pub that doesn't take itself too seriously.
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Rank 54. Demon, Wise and Partners
Cocktail Bar
A basement cocktail bar beneath a City pub, with a name that sounds like it handles mergers but actually refers to the house's two signature batched cocktails: the Demon, something stiff and stirred, and the Wise, a lighter sour. Each batch is different, and a snooker scoreboard above the back bar counts down however many pours remain. The suits filing in after close of trade probably don't mind the urgency.
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Rank 55. Bar Tozino
Spanish
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Rank 56. Hunter S.
Wine Bar
The Campari and Aperol left out on the bar-top are a deliberate tell: this isn't your average Islington local. Hunter S. is a spirits bar with around 150 bottles leaning heavily into Scotch, American, and international whiskies, plus rum, and respectable depth in everything else. The vibe runs closer to a relaxed brasserie than a reverent whisky library, which means you'll end up talking flavour profiles without feeling like you're taking an exam.
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Rank 57. Wahaca Terrace
Mexican
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Rank 58. One Canada Square
Cocktail Bar
The bar sits at the base of the Canary Wharf tower, tucked behind head-height dividers that carve out something warm and human from an otherwise very serious corporate lobby. A mezzanine bar upstairs has a quieter, more private feel and tends to get booked for events. Cocktails are the reason to pull up a stool, and the after-work crowd in good suits fills the place fast on weekdays.
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Rank 59. Translate
Cocktail Bar
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.
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A Spanish bar tucked below Westferry Circus where the bank-to-bank ferry actually docks, with a patio that puts you close enough to wave at the party boats passing on the Thames. Inside, the decor leans loud and the music louder, with visiting DJs turning a tapas bar into something closer to a night out. Sangria and Spanish beer flow freely, and no one seems to be here for a quiet drink.
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Rank 63. 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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The building looks enough like a factory that you'll second-guess yourself on the walk up. Once inside, this cocktail bar in East London's Bethnal Green-Hackney corridor keeps the industrial mood going: white walls, exposed bulbs, and a big island bar where you can watch the dining room below get on with its evening. The crowd skews local and knowing, which is really the only way you'd find it.
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Rank 65. 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 67. High Water
Cocktail Bar
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The name isn't a joke: the space was a dance school once, and you can still feel the bones of it, a big open floor with an island bar dropped in the middle like someone had to make a decision. Theatre flip-seats, barstools, and worn couches fill the edges in a pleasingly haphazard way. The stripped, slightly faded surfaces fit Dalston perfectly. A neighbourhood bar that doesn't try too hard, which in this part of east London counts for something.
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A split-level neighbourhood bar on Hackney Road, named for the man who burned the previous building down in 1883 after being refused entry. Arson as branding is an interesting choice, but it works. What was most recently a curry house is now a late-night drinking spot filling a gap in an area that wasn't exactly drowning in options, a short walk from Columbia Road.
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The name comes from the axe used to split an agave piña, which tells you everything about how seriously this Kingsland Road bar takes its subject. Around two dozen tequilas, mezcals, and lesser-known agave spirits rotate through the back bar, and the Mirror Margarita, served in tequila or mezcal form, has become the thing regulars order without looking up. A proper agave bar in a neighborhood that didn't need another generic cocktail spot.
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The worn linoleum and unchanged fittings place this old pub firmly in the era before anyone thought pubs needed a rebrand. Sitting at the heart of Columbia Road, it gets absolutely heaved on Sunday mornings when the flower market fills the street outside, but weekday evenings are quieter and the beer flows steadily. Apparently the interior is convincing enough to double as wartime London on screen, which tells you something about how little has changed.
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Two railway arches near Hoxton Station, with the London Overground still rumbling overhead, house this bar and restaurant combo named after one of the old North London line locomotives. The bar takes one arch, the restaurant the other, and old railway sleepers frame the terrace outside. Inside, the look is contemporary Danish furniture against sand-blasted brick, which sounds like a contradiction until you're sitting in it.
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The name is borrowed from the Greek for "the common people," which makes the irony of its Ace Hotel address fairly rich. This ground-floor bar in Shoreditch pulls the expected east London crowd, laptops and carefully considered facial hair very much in evidence, but the room reads warmer than that demographic tends to promise. Order a drink and settle in; the self-consciousness is mostly on the outside.
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The centerpiece is an island bar with a tiled mosaic that anchors a huge open room somewhere between American diner and grungy music venue. It's a cocktail bar leaning hard into bourbon, with a short list of well-made classics and one of the more serious American whiskey collections in the neighborhood. Come early enough and you can actually perch at the bar before the live music takes over and the volume becomes non-negotiable.
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Rank 76. Merchants Tavern
Modern British
Factory-style skylights flood the room by day; after dark the same space goes low-lit and conspiratorially dim. This bar and brasserie in Shoreditch is Angela Hartnett's place, and her presence here is itself a small sign of how far the neighborhood has drifted from its rough-edged origins. The room has the look of somewhere that's been around forever, which it hasn't, but the trick works. Come for a drink and stay longer than you planned.
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Rank 77. Tramshed
Steakhouse
A Damien Hirst cow and cockerel, suspended in formaldehyde, preside over the cathedral-scale bar inside a converted Victorian power station in Shoreditch. The drinks program is the work of a serious collaborator, so cocktails get as much thought as the famously binary food menu next door. The room does the heavy lifting, and it lifts heavy: high ceilings, industrial bones, and faces pressed to the glass outside.
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A long wooden bar, inherited from a pan-Asian predecessor that didn't stick around, anchors this subterranean cocktail bar beneath Hixter in the City. The look is New York basement, done in leather seating, low lighting, and exposed brick, and it pulls off the warmth that look usually just promises. A solid place to disappear after the Square Mile empties out.
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Rank 82. NeNe at Chrysan
Modern Japanese
The bar inside this modern Asian restaurant near Liverpool Street looks a little sparse in daylight, which is the kindest framing available. Come evening, the low lighting does the heavy lifting, and the cocktail list earns its keep regardless. The drinks lean into bold, unexpected pairings, the kind that make you wonder why nobody combined those two things before. Service keeps pace without fuss.
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Rank 83. Loves Company
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar on City Road where an artist draws directly onto the walls, so the place you walk into isn't quite the place you walked into last time. It sits across from Nightjar, which tells you everything about the neighbourhood's ambitions and nothing about the vibe here, which runs lively and loose rather than theatrical. Two floors, a ruby-leaning colour scheme that shifts over time, and drinks that lean casual rather than ceremonial.
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Rank 84. Vertigo 42
Cocktail Bar
A champagne bar perched nearly 600 feet up in Tower 42, in the heart of the City, where the point is unmistakably the view. You reserve by phone, clear a security line that takes its cues from airport protocol, and take an ear-popping lift to the 42nd floor. London spreads out in every direction, which is fortunate, because the drinks list gives you time to look at it.
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Rank 85. The Mercer
Cocktail Bar
A Victorian banking hall on Threadneedle Street, all soaring ceilings and white linen that still feels vaguely capable of financing a railway. The cocktail list and crisp service quickly establish this as a serious cocktail bar, not just a power-lunch backdrop. City workers fill it noisily through the day, then the room empties fast when the commuter trains call. Come early evening for elbow room that, an hour later, would be genuinely hard to believe.
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Rank 86. Hoxley and Porter
Cocktail Bar
The entrance corridor is fitted out like a train carriage, luggage racks and hanging straps included, which sets the tone for what follows. Hoxley and Porter is a cocktail bar on Upper Street where Art Deco styling meets colonial exotica in a way that somehow evokes Agatha Christie more than theme park. Islington's bar scene has historically punched below its restaurant weight, and this place arrived to do something about that.
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Rank 87. Mint Leaf
Indian
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Hine and Hennessey XO on the back bar of a Victoria Park pub is not something you see every day. This enormous East End boozer, sitting on the north edge of the park, leans hard into the Britannia theme, which is to say red, white, and blue on every available surface. No cocktail list in sight, but the spirit selection hints that someone behind the bar knows what they're doing with a shaker if you ask nicely.
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Rank 90. 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 91. Plateau
Cocktail Bar
A lift from outside the Waitrose deposits you on the fourth floor of Canada Place, where an all-glass bar looks out over Canary Wharf while the suits inside do what suits do: champagne, volume, competitive guffawing. The lounge area with low-slung seats offers some shelter from the open kitchen and the office-party energy. Jazz competes with everything. The cocktail list leads with classics, and they're done properly.
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Rank 92. 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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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.
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Rank 95. The Plume of Feathers
British
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.
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Rank 96. Goodman Canary Wharf
American Steakhouse
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The floors here haven't been straight since Charles Dickens used the place as inspiration for the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters in Our Mutual Friend, and not much else has changed either. This tiny old pub backs onto the Thames on Narrow Street, and the building has been a drinking spot for centuries. Come for a pint in a room that lists and creaks, and possibly for the view of the river out back.
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Rank 98. The Blacksmith's Arms
Beer Bar
A brass plaque on the bar marks the waterline from the 1928 flood, which tells you something about how long this Fuller's pub has been absorbing local history. It's an old-school neighborhood boozer on the Rotherhithe waterfront, the kind where regulars nurse pints of Fuller's ale without checking the ferry schedule. Nelson is said to have stopped in while his ship was fitted out nearby, though the pub isn't the sort to make a fuss about it.
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Rank 99. 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 100. 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.