The best happy hours in London

£9 for a cocktail and a plate of cicchetti. Wed-Sat, 5pm-7pm.

This basement bar is so dripping in disco, paying it a visit should instantly have you buzzing – but Supermax’s happy hour makes a trip here all the more groovy. For two hours, a list of banging Negroni-inspired cocktails will set you back £9 a pop – including a rhubarb and pink pepper-spiked Negroni Sbagliato – and each one comes with a plate of Italian tapas. Enjoy them all under the retro glow of a glitter ball and to an unbeatable soundtrack. This has got to be the capital’s coolest happy hour.

£2.50 spirit and mixer. £3 bottles of beer, glasses of wine. 2-4-1 cocktails. £12 bottles of wine (prosecco £20). Sun-Fri, 4–9pm.

Answers on a postcard if you have any idea how this retro bar hasn’t bankrupted itself with its bargain basement drinks offers. Retro ‘90s party bangers play while bar staff serve a young crowd wine, beer and spirits with mixer for £2.50 a time. Given that it doesn’t just last 60 minutes, but five whole hours (less ‘happy hour’, more ‘very happy afternoon’), it’s a wonder that the crowd aren’t all shouting abuse at each other while playing incredibly wobbly games of ‘Micro Machines’ on the resident Megadrive or loudly slurring along to ‘Return of the Mack’. But, amazingly, things are actually pretty civilised – particularly if you head down early in the week. Oh, and don’t worry if you don’t fancy the trip to King’s Cross – each of Simmons’ 13 other locations all offer the same deals.

Cocktails £7.50, 10pm-close.

Visit the upstairs bar at this central London restaurant where the incredible food is inspired by canteen food in Bangkok’s own Chinatown. Ignore the drinks at your peril though, as post 10pm, snakeblood negronis, Tommy went to Thailand margs and whiskey sodas are all £7.50. For £15 you can blow your weekly booze unit intake in one with a 555 deal; one Leo beer, one cocktail and one chaser. 

Pints £4, Thurs and Sun. Cocktails, £6.50 Fri.

One of our fave taprooms on Walthamstow’s Blackhorse Beer Mile offers a variety of happy hours throughout the week. Selected pints are £4 every Thursday and Sunday, while bottles of wine are 25% off on Thursdays, and every Friday until 2am select cocktails are £6.50. Which means you're probably in for some kind of deal whatever day you decide to visit.

£5 for sake of the week or a sake cocktail. Wed-Thu 5pm-7pm.

As far as happy hours go, this one is a pretty sophisticated one. Head to the UK’s first craft sake brewery, Kanpai, on Wednesdays and Thursdays to enjoy the delights in its taproom at a knockdown rate. That includes the premium sake of the day for a fiver. You can also try cocktails made from the Japanese rice wine and filled with flavours from the country to get those tastebuds dancing at the start of the weekend.

Pints £3.99, Thu-Fri 5-7pm.

Not only does Five Points Brewery make great beer, it also has an excellent place to drink it. There’s a cosy tap room for colder days, and a courtyard for sunny evenings, where you can get well-acquainted with their beers and sample some BBQ treats. And if that wasn’t enough, on Thursday and Friday between 5pm and 7pm, you can get a pint of their freshest tank-beer for the incredibly decent price of £3.99. 

Two-for-one cocktails, Mon-Fri 6-8pm. Double spirit and mixer £6, Thu and Sun 10-11pm.

The undisputed party pub of south London, the Prince of Peckham offers two chances at a happy hour. Early birds can sink 2-4-1 cocktails throughout the week before 8pm (we fancy a couple of Burna Boys with chilli-infused tequila, agave and lime) while double spirit and mixers come in at bargainous £6 late on Thursday and Sundays.

Margaritas £8, 6-7pm.

Visit Mexico City via Dalston at the ever-excellent Corrochio’s on the Kingsland Road and sip on knock-down price classic and tommy's margs every day of the week until 7pm. You might as well order a pot of just-chunky-enough guacamole and a queso fundido too. 

£3.50 for selected pints of beer. £3.50 for house spirit and mixer. For members (but membership is free!). Daily, until 8.30pm.

A central London bar that’s not rammed with Stella-swigging suits? It does exist, and it’s an intimate, arty retreat (wood panelling, kooky art and foreign cinema posters) that pulls off retro cool without being pretentious. Chilled though it is, the Social is a small venue and things get a little busier after office hours, so arrive early or book ahead if you want a booth to lounge in. What can you enjoy during happy hour? Currently, the deal includes pints of Camden Pale and house spirits with mixers until 8.30pm for members – and don’t worry, membership is free, you just need to send an email in advance. We’re loath to let you in on this covert, boozy secret, frankly.

£10 cocktails, Mon-Thu all night.

Kitsch, tropical paraphernalia coats every corner of this bijou bar where tiki-style drinks are served in custom-made ceramics. There are four happy hour cocktails available throughout the week, including a Sunset Sling with gin, Aperol, passionfriut and elderflower, as well as a Palm Beach Swizzle with various rums, Campari and coconut. 

Cocktails two for £12, Sol beer £4. Wed all night, Thu-Fri 5-7pm, Sat 5-6pm, Sun 7-9pm.

Make for this gorgeously seedy circus-themed Shoreditch bar for generous stints of discount drinks. It's the perfect opportunity to fuel up before a hectic night of dancing to a strong line-up of house, disco and funk DJs, spread across three floors. 

Two-for-one cocktails. Sun-Fri, 4pm–7pm (Goodge St, Liverpool St, Old St, Oxford Circus, Shoreditch); everyday (Clapham, Mansion House, Monument, Shaftesbury Avenue).   

Popular mixologists London Cocktail Club now boast nine bars across town, all of which ply punters with half-price booze every day of the week. We like their dimly lit, tattoo-themed Shaftesbury Avenue dive the most, with its loud ’90s music and well-mixed booze. As the weekend approaches, expect it to get busier (and sweatier), until waiting at the bar feels not unlike squeezing onto a tube train at 8am. Except that this is a much better way to meet strangers.

£10 margaritas. Thu-Sat 11pm-midnight. 

The former Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in Covent Garden is now the posh NoMad hotel, and the in-house bar, Side Hustle, offers a late-night happy hour that provides the perfect nightcap. Sink £10 margaritas in an atmospheric bar in the former police station, with low lights, leather booths, a Californian-inspired menu (try the build-your-own beef short rib tacos) and many, many tequila and mezcal drinks.

£25 for two pizzas and two drinks, Sun-Wed 5-8pm. Two-for-one cocktails, Mon-Sun, 5–8pm.

Down a buzzy pedestrianised street in central Clapham, early evenings see Venn St Records dropping a little of its offbeat vibe and trying to plug into the generic after-work crowd with an excellent happy hour cocktail offer. From 5pm, a sparse, suited crew gather inside the dark, dingy, underground, neon-tinged room in pursuit of their expertly mixed, nicely varied cocktails. It’s all part of the bar’s ‘cheap date’ menu, and includes pizza as part of the deal. Check out sister bars Old St Records and Northcote Records for similar bargains.

Two-for-one cocktails. Four bottles of San Miguel for £15. Mon-Fri 5-8pm.

Normally the term ‘dive bar’ is an insult, but that’s basically the vibe that this late-opening Islington establishment is going for. The lighting levels are negligible, the jukebox will punch you if you contemplate anything other than classic rock, and in an eyebrow-raising nod to the heyday of the Sunset Strip, the rafters of the ceiling are covered in used bras. This being London, the only thing missing is dive bar prices, but during happy hour you can get two of the same cocktails for the price of one. It’s a rugged, whisky-centric list: try a Lynchburg Lemonade (Tennessee whiskey with Cointreau, lemon juice, lemonade and bitters) for something crisp and refreshing, and a not too full-on way of rounding off the working day.

Two-for-one cocktails, £4.50 beer bottles, £25 bottles of prosecco. Sun-Thu 4-7pm, Fri 4-6pm.

This is a crowd-pleasing kind of happy hour, set bang in the middle of central London and covering all the booze bases. Not only that, but you can spread yourself out in the basement bar’s ‘grand hall’ behind a secret door or in the ‘vault’ even further underground. Although the cocktail list is a modern offering, the theme is vaguely Victorian. Time to party like it’s 1889.