The Best Cocktail Bars in London

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

The copper and steel stills behind the glass wall are not props. Each one was carried down the stairs by hand, and they all still run, made by German craftsman Christian Carl with the kind of dials and levers Jules Verne would have sketched. This City cocktail bar leans hard into gin, with a menu built around it, though other spirits and a few beers are there if you insist on ignoring the obvious.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

A three-floor East London cocktail bar with a liquor store stocking over a thousand bottles, many of them rare, which already tells you something about the clientele. The cellar bar is the heart of it, candlelit and genuinely subterranean, while upstairs fills with masterclasses and tasting sessions most weekends. It sits on Kingsland Road, where the bar scene runs deep, and holds its own among stiff competition.

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide