The Top 25 Places to Drink Near Tropea
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Rank 1. Couch
Cocktail Bar
Every cocktail on the menu is built around a film, and the menu itself is designed as a picture editorial, so you're reading a small magazine before you drink. This walk-in neighbourhood cocktail bar in Stirchley topped the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list in 2026, which is a long way from a quiet side street in Birmingham. Wednesday to Saturday, 4pm onward, stools at the bar and bistro tables, no reservations required.
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Rank 2. Passing Fancies
Cocktail Bar
The menu changes constantly by design, which is the whole point of the name. This cocktail bar in Digbeth's Custard Factory keeps only twelve drinks on the list at any given time, ranging from fruity and approachable to a rye-walnut-salt number that means business. The room is laid out like a kitchen at a house party, which sounds like a cliche until you're in it. It landed on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list at number sixteen.
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Rank 3. Lucky7
East Asian Cocktail Bar
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A red door street-level, a flight of stairs down, and suddenly you're in a subterranean bar lined with curtained alcoves that feels like someone converted a Victorian vault because they did. It splits into a restaurant left and a bar right, the latter being the point. Weekend booths require a reservation and a premium, so midweek regulars who know better tend to have the atmosphere to themselves and the tab to prove it.
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A red-carpeted staircase lifts you out of the four-lane chaos outside and into a hotel bar that has somehow engineered genuine calm, with high ceilings, dim lighting, and soft music doing the heavy lifting. The focal point is a pillar plastered in readable postcards, which is either charming or a lifeline if the conversation has gone quiet. The mood runs warm and a little theatrical, all flickering red tea lights and hushed tones.
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Rank 8. Hotel du Vin
Cocktail Bar
Turn left past the hotel lobby and you find yourself in a cocktail lounge where murals of women styled as absinthe bottles share wall space with soft Tuscan colours and a dark oak bar that stretches across two rooms. The champagne-house names painted above them set the tone: this is a place that takes its drinking seriously, even if the Pub du Vin downstairs is right there if you need an exit route.
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Rank 9. The Lord Clifden
Dive Bar
The corridor just inside the front door is lined with framed glowing reviews, which is either very confident or very self-aware, and at The Lord Clifden it's probably both. This Jewellery Quarter pub has Banksy prints, exposed brick, beautiful wood panelling, and an enormous beer garden out back. The bar straddles two rooms and the whole thing has the unhurried feel of a proper British boozer. Ale, scampi fries, pub grub.
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Rank 10. The Jekyll and Hyde
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 11. The Victoria
Dive Bar
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.
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A stream runs alongside the terrace at this rural Worcestershire gastropub, which reopened after a full refurbishment and is now drawing people out from the city. The chef came up through Carters of Moseley, and the menu sits comfortably between proper pub food and something a bit more considered: battered haddock sits beside seabass with lobster bisque, and neither feels out of place. Menus turn with the seasons, the interior is cosy, and the desserts reportedly justify the drive.
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A chrome Buddha greets you at the door of this cocktail lounge and piano bar in the Brindleyplace development, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Twinkling ceiling lights, comfy chairs, and live piano most nights of the week make it easy to lose track of time. Sink into a seat at the black stone bar and the place wraps around you quickly.
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A 14th-century Grade I-listed manor house is the unlikely anchor of this sprawling south Staffordshire pub, where walkers and diners turn up in roughly equal numbers. Inside, art deco lighting and a Blue Room wrapped in a 360-degree mural sit comfortably beside the open kitchen and pizza oven. Outside, there are booths and a bookable teepee. It took Marston's Pub of the Year at the 2025 Great British Pub Awards.
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Rank 17. The Boat
Modern British Pub
A Michelin-starred gastropub on a busy A-road outside Lichfield, which is either a strike against it or the whole point, depending on how you feel about destination dining. The kitchen runs a small on-site farm that feeds the menu, with local producers covering the rest, all handled with the kind of precision that makes a venison dish feel considered rather than merely seasonal. The chefs come out to explain what's on the plate, and somehow it doesn't feel annoying.
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A pub whose back garden is so large it hosts its own Oktoberfest, sausage toss included. Inside, The Black Pug is a warren of cosy rooms; outside, there's covered seating, an outdoor bar, and enough room for a grumble of actual pugs, which is both the collective noun and, on any given weekend, an accurate headcount. Pizza Monday, Taco Tuesday, and free kids' meals on Friday keep the locals cycling through. Star Pub of the Year at the Great British Pub Awards 2025.
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Rank 19. The Cross
Contemporary British Pub
The dining room here was once a schoolroom, and the hand bell wall lamps haven't let anyone forget it. This Michelin-starred gastropub in a restored Grade II listed inn does serious British cooking, the kind that follows the seasons closely and sources with equal care. The back room looks straight onto the kitchen pass if you want the theatre. The tasting menu is how the kitchen makes its fullest argument.
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Pewter mugs hang from low beams in this National Trust-owned country pub that has been a fixture of Bretforton village life for centuries. Flagstone floors, roaring fires, and an orchard garden set the scene for real ale, food, and the occasional Morris dancing display. The Great British Pub Awards named it Best Country Pub in 2025, which will surprise no one who has spent an afternoon here working through a pint while someone's dog sleeps by the fire.
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Rank 21. The Two Pigs
Modern British
The name changed from the Red Lion to The Two Pigs in 2023, and so did pretty much everything else. It's a gastropub in a Staffordshire village, doing modern pub classics with produce from local farmers and a micro-farm next door. Weekend brunches, Sunday roasts, seasonal cocktails, and bar snacks running all day give the place an all-hours, good-time quality that most gastropubs only manage for dinner service.
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Rank 22. Crown Wharf
British Pub
The brewery tap for Joules, Crown Wharf sits on the original site of one of their first breweries, built almost entirely from reclaimed materials by a two-man crew that kept going through the pandemic. It's a proper pub with a theatre and heritage centre attached, which is not a sentence you write every day. The Great British Pub Awards named it Overall Great British Pub of the Year in 2025, and Stone seems to agree, judging by the crowd.
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Rank 23. Charlton Arms
British Pub
A gastropub sitting right on the River Teme, with terraces that make it nearly impossible to eat inside on a fine day. The menu moves comfortably between French and British without making a fuss about it, running from fish soup with rouille to battered haddock to sticky toffee pudding. Muddy walkers, well-behaved dogs, and people on date nights all seem equally at home here. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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Rank 24. The Wild Rabbit
Modern British Pub
A Cotswolds inn that pulls its produce straight from Daylesford's farm next door, so the bread, cheese, meat, and vegetables have had almost no time to reconsider their life choices before reaching the table. The Wild Rabbit is a gastropub with a log fire, worn leather armchairs, and an open kitchen, and it sits in the Top 50 Gastropubs list. The bar runs artisan ales alongside the kind of lagers nobody is embarrassed to order.
- Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · Sustainable Pub of the Year · Top 50 Gastropubs
- Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #45 · Top 50 Gastropubs
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 25. The Bull
British Pub
Twin open fires and flagged floors set the tone at this old Cotswold inn turned gastropub, where the kitchen cooks over flame and changes the menu as often as the farmers call. The team behind London's The Pelican came home to Charlbury to restore it, and the terse, ingredient-led dishes feel like the point rather than the ambition. It ranks in the Top 50 Gastropubs and is in the Michelin Guide. Rooms upstairs if you miss the last train.
- Great British Pub Awards 2025 · Best Pub for Food · Great British Pub Awards
- Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 · #28 · Top 50 Gastropubs
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant