The 100 best bars and pubs in London - Sager + Wilde, Haggerston
© Rob Greig | |
© Rob Greig | |

The 100 best bars and pubs in London: the full list

We've done the drinking for you, now read our full list of London's very best bars and pubs divided up by area

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Looking for a tipple in London town? Browse our list of the very best bars and pubs London has to offer. We've divided them up by area for your ease, so head north, south, east, west or stick with central London for impressive local boozers, lively cocktail bars, pubs for a cool craft beer or sophisticated wine bars. You'll find them all and so much more below. Happy drinking!

RECOMMENDED: The 100 best bars and pubs in London

The best bars and pubs in central London

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  • Contemporary European
  • Seven Dials
Ape & Bird
Ape & Bird

A great hideaway to know about in an area known for touristy pubs

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  • Cocktail bars
  • Soho
  • price 2 of 4
Bar Termini
Bar Termini

Everything is of extraordinarily high quality, and the minute setting offers the rare luxury of peace and quiet in central Soho

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  • Hotel bars
  • Knightsbridge
  • price 3 of 4
Blue Bar
Blue Bar

Every bit as luxe as you’d expect for a bar in a Knightsbridge hotel

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  • Cocktail bars
  • Soho
  • price 2 of 4
Cocktail Trading Company
Cocktail Trading Company

Cocktails are often served in unusual glassware (and ceramicware) with wacky garnishes, candy floss or noodles among them

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  • Pubs
  • Covent Garden
  • price 1 of 4

The range of ciders and ales on offer here is outstanding and the prices are blissfully low, both of which have helped to cement the Harp's reputation as a destination for true ale-ficienados

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  • Cocktail bars
  • Mayfair
  • price 3 of 4
Mr Fogg's
Mr Fogg's

Seriously knowledgeable bar staff make sure cocktails are punchy, exciting and altogether sensational

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  • Craft beer pubs
  • King’s Cross
  • price 2 of 4

It's usually cosy and blissfully music-free, apart from the odd hipster-trad jazz session around the old walnut upright piano

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The best bars and pubs in north London

  • Craft beer pubs
  • Angel
  • price 2 of 4
Craft Beer Company
Craft Beer Company
A comfortable pub with an excellent beer list is a dangerous proposition, and you could certainly spend many happy hours here
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  • Craft beer pubs
  • Islington
  • price 2 of 4

Nowadays, almost every new pub tries to sell itself on a ‘craft beer’ offer, but not all manage it on this scale - there are 11 on keg, five or six on cask, plus a couple of quality ciders

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  • Craft beer pubs
  • Euston
  • price 2 of 4
Euston Tap
Euston Tap

The sheer number of brews on offer here is enough to make beer fans go weak at the knees before they’ve even got a glass in their hand

  • Cocktail bars
  • King’s Cross
  • price 2 of 4
Grain Store Bar
Grain Store Bar

Try a bellini made not with peach purée but with celeriac purée; or a ‘Greco-Roman wine’, infused with the likes of smoked paprika cordial

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  • Pubs
  • Kentish Town
  • price 1 of 4
Pineapple
Pineapple

This backstreet boozer dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, and you can feel the history in the weathered wood of the joyously unmodernised main bar

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The best bars and pubs in east London

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  • Gastropubs
  • London Fields
  • price 2 of 4
Dove
Dove

Craft beer done the time-honoured Low-Country way

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  • Gastropubs
  • Bethnal Green
  • price 2 of 4
King's Arms
King's Arms

The perfect update of a local community boozer: its clientele reflect all shades of local life

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  • Music
  • Music venues
  • Shoreditch
  • price 2 of 4
The Old Blue Last
The Old Blue Last

Despite its location at the epicentre of the Shoreditch party scene and its association with hipster bible Vice (which bought the place in 2004), the Old Blue Last does a remarkable job of defying preconceptions

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  • Cocktail bars
  • Bethnal Green
  • price 2 of 4
Peg & Patriot
Peg & Patriot

The puntastic cocktails at Peg + Patriot are as creative as their names suggest

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  • Pubs
  • Bethnal Green
  • price 2 of 4
Sun Tavern
Sun Tavern

In the evenings, the Sun gets busy. Not surprising: there’s a lot to love here

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The best bars and pubs in south London

  • Gastropubs
  • Tooting
  • price 1 of 4
Antelope
Antelope

Think ‘1950s village hall’: it’s full of gorgeous wood panelling, stained glass windows, church pews and criss-crossing floral fabric bunting

  • Eastern European
  • Southwark
  • price 2 of 4
Baltic
Baltic
There are more than 50 cocktails on the lengthy list, but the speciality is vodka
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  • Pubs
  • Greenwich
Cutty Sark Tavern
Cutty Sark Tavern

Three floors of bow-fronted Georgian magic, with the top-level room in particular giving fantastic Thames views both up- and downstream

  • Gastropubs
  • Battersea
Draft House
Draft House

The endlessly rotating list of guest ales means you’re unlikely to find a beer lover who can’t find something new to relish each week

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  • Pubs
  • Blackheath
Hare & Billet
Hare & Billet
Always a decent local boozer, the H&B’s crafty reinvention has made it something quite special
  • Pubs
  • Nunhead

It welcomes locals of all ages for a mates-rates pint of locally brewed ale, carefully sourced pub food and events ranging from live music to yoga classes, knitting circles and kids’ dance lessons

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  • Clubs
  • Battersea
  • price 2 of 4
Lost Angel
Lost Angel

The real draw is Happy Hour: from Tuesday to Saturday, 5-8pm, and all day on Sunday, cocktails cost around £6

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  • Pubs
  • Rotherhithe
  • price 2 of 4
Mayflower
Mayflower

Of all the Thamesside pubs, this one is the most special, the most atmospheric, the most tucked-away

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  • Pubs
  • Stockwell
  • price 1 of 4
Priory Arms
Priory Arms

If you asked your granddad to design a pub this is probably exactly what he’d come up with, and we mean that in the best possible way

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  • Pubs
  • Southwark
  • price 1 of 4

Perfectly treading the line between old man boozer and cutesy retro watering hole, this Victorian corner pub’s a lovely blend of the scruffy and the pretty

  • Clapham
The Rookery
The Rookery
Slightly tucked away from the hullabaloo that is Clapham at the weekend, this is a place to get merry with your well-behaved friends
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The best bars and pubs in west London

  • Breweries
  • Goldhawk Road
  • price 2 of 4
Brewdog
Brewdog

It remains one of the only places for miles around where you can sup on dozens of carefully crafted beers

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  • Craft beer pubs
  • Pimlico
  • price 2 of 4

The cellar and fridges are filled with an almost absurdly generous range of the finest brews from London, Britain and beyond

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  • Pubs
  • Hammersmith
  • price 1 of 4
Dove
Dove

A classic duck-your-head heritage pub experience, but most drinkers come here to sit in the vine-entangled conservatory or the riverside terrace

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  • Cocktail bars
  • Notting Hill
Rum Kitchen
Rum Kitchen

The rum selection is enormous, and you could spend weeks here without getting through it all

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  • Wine bars
  • Chiswick
  • price 2 of 4
Vinoteca
Vinoteca

Glasses start from a few quid a pop, with bottles from just under £20  – and there are plenty in the blow-out category

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  • Pubs
  • Parsons Green
  • price 2 of 4
White Horse
White Horse

Chesterfield-style sofas surround huge tables, ideal for families and groups of friends, though the umbrella-covered outdoor tables are most coveted from spring on

  • Pubs
  • Notting Hill
  • price 2 of 4
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle

The Windsor Castle is clad in aged wood the brown of Princess Anne’s saddle; still intact are decorative wooden screens installed by the Victorians to separate the sexes while they got sloshed

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