London bar reviews

Everyone is on the listening bar hype right now, from Jumbi in Peckham to Bambi in London Fields, and now Bethnal Green is getting its shot in the spotlight. Câv, hidden under the railway arches on Paradise Row, is the latest to hop on board. Its name translates to ‘cave’ in Spanish, which alludes to its dome-like interior, as well as the Spanish and Portuguese-influenced menu of bar snacks and small plates, cooked up by Tasca, who are kicking things off with a year-long kitchen residency. Dark, sultry and understated, this space is pretty big, and there are plans to install a top-quality sound system and large library of vinyl on one wall which guests will be ‘free to peruse and play at their own leisure before things get too rowdy’ – in addition to DJ decks for when the night really kicks into gear. It’s all too easy to imagine tables being pushed to one side to make way for a sizeable dancefloor. The drinks menu features a slick selection of eight house cocktails, including a lip-smacking plum manhattan, smooth lemongrass highball and a perfectly-executed dill martini. Each was complex in its own right, with a simple, sophisticated playfulness – and all were priced at a fair £12. I happily snacked on a selection of anchovies, prudo ham, and plump green olives between sips.  I have no doubts that the tried-and-tested food plus vinyl plus cool cocktails combo will be a welcome addition to Bethnal Green’s nighttime scene, who have been a little left out from the...

Named after Nicholas Culpeper, the seventeenth-century English herbalist, who lived in nearby Spitalfields – is a tonic for any East Ender. The ‘seasonal and local food’ mantra is taken to silly heights at this gastropub in the heart of London’s East End, where salad leaves and some herbs for the kitchen are grown in planters on the roof garden. It’s a bit of fun – and maybe a bit of on-trend window-dressing too. No roof garden can keep a busy kitchen in produce. But ignore the pathos of such tokenism, because everything else about this pub – drinks, service, ambience and, above all, the excellent dishes – towers over any commitment to high-level horticulture. The Culpeper (formerly the Princess Alice) occupies a corner site facing Petticoat Lane Market. It was a Truman’s pub and remains a handsome Victorian inn, with the brewery signage preserved. There’s a ground floor pub, a first floor restaurant and a garden rooftop open from the spring through the summer. The latest owners have improved the frontage, laid beautiful parquet floors, installed a curvaceous bar and added industrial-style lighting – the result is a treat, fitting perfectly with both building and location. Time Out tip Thinking of having an absolutely massive night out? The Cupeper functions as a bijou hotel, with a couple of classy rooms on the second floor.  

You know what London is missing? A colossal bar in the middle of Covent Garden where you can watch Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen and The Shining on 30 silver screens while simultaneously cheering on the Europa League. Said no one ever. Yet Bloodsports, from the same minds behind Meatliquor, seems to really be onto something here. This is the sort of unpretentious late-night fun that has been lacking in central London for far too long. A quick stroll from Covent Garden tube, and slyly hidden down a corridor entrance sandwiched between a coffee hatch and a Tesco, this place is a Tardis: a vast, windowless den where it could be 10am or 10pm - you wouldn’t know for the glare of red neon lights and lack of windows. A generous bar lines one side of the room, another is closer to the back, and the whole space is kitted out with stacks of tables and benches as well as arcade games and pool. There’s plenty of organised fun to be had if you fancy it, though take caution if you choose to do karaoke: it is ‘on demand’, meaning pretty much the whole venue will watch (and hear) your rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’. This kind of huge, big-booking place could be hellish – hello, Brewdog Waterloo – but somehow, it’s not. Bloodsports is cool in a sort of self-consciously cringey way, working well because it truly goes all-in on the ‘horror movie meets sports bar’ theme. There’s a ‘bloods’ menu, with lip-smackingly good tomato-based cocktails (your classic bloody marys, as well as...

This subterranean space should be more than familiar to east London’s more millennial partiers. Once known as Ruby’s, this cosy basement is now the boozing adjunct to Corrochio’s upstairs; a dedicated agave spirits den made for tumbling into before – or after – dinner at one of London’s best Mexican restaurants. Cinco is warm and rustic, clad with a fitting jumble of Latin-leaning goodies, from religious totems to the occasional cactus. Prepare to be impressed: the cocktail menu is much more adventurous than the expected margaritas and palomas. There’s a Gibson martini made with Mexican gin and nectarine, and El Papatzul, heady with fermented apple and pear tepache as well as calvados and served with a side of Oaxacan grasshoppers.  Order this El Padresito is a mighty Mexican version of the cocktail king that is the Penicillin. It’s made with Pensador espadin mezcal, homemade ginger and honey liqueur, fresh lemon and honeycomb.  Time Out tip There’s a small snacking menu, serving mini versions of Corrochio’s best dishes, in case you need to line your stomach.

Keep your eyes peeled for this one: it’s sunk beneath Greek Street, accessed through a dodgy-looking doorway and a seriously scruffy staircase. If there’s a less salubrious introduction to a bar in London then, well, we’d like to see it. These days, the term ‘speakeasy’ is bandied about with reckless abandon by bar owners desperate to adorn their venue with an elusive, exclusive and illicit allure yet few are the genuine McCoy – not least because if you’re shouting about what you’re doing, then you’re not a genuine speakeasy. This old school drinking den and members club, however, is refreshingly free of any such affectation. It was formerly called Trisha’s (aka The Hideout), and there’s a small bar, a scattering of tables and chairs and pictures of boxers, mafia types and Italian football teams adorning the worn walls. There’s a very small courtyard out the back and only one proper lavatory. It looks like the kind of place where someone would get whacked in ‘The Sopranos’ – except there was an episode of ‘Emmerdale’ showing when we last went. True to a real speakeasy, the drink selection is pretty average. There are some bottled beers, a couple of wines and a quite random selection of spirits. The New Evaristo Club has some very devoted regulars. If they aren't entertainment enough, there are some jazz nights. And there’s always ‘Emmerdale’.

If you want to drink well in London, Hackney has long been one of the best places to do so. The pubs are unparalleled and you’re rarely more than five feet away from a small-plates restaurant with an erudite line in natural wine. Over the past decade Hackney has also been refining an excellent collection of astutely un-grotty dive bars, from the emo-adjacent Blondie’s in the far reaches of Clapton to the satan-worshiping Helgi’s, which you’ll find right next door to Mare Street’s latest booze hole. The overall vibe is Sex and the City directed by Tarantino Rasputin’s comes from, weirdly, the same folk as cult sandwich slingers Dom’s Subs. And though there’s not a single sarnie on the menu here, cheap hot dogs help place Rasputin’s somewhere in the middle of a niche Osakan mini bar and rowdy Texan drinking den. It’s a giddy little space, and one lit mainly by sultry red light but also TV sets pumping out cult movies. Film noir-worthy shutters on the front windows let in minimal distraction from the street, and the resulting effect is a chaotic kind of chic.   When we visit, it’s early on a Thursday night, and there’s a spaghetti western soundtrack to punters basking in the neon glow. Some are sat on mid-century sofas next to equally neat coffee tables, or perched by the long, well-stocked bar. Most are drinking sweet but powerful five olive martinis, which at £7 might just be the best value cocktail in town. The overall vibe is Sex and the City directed by Tarantino. The...

Deep in the leafy residential swathes of De Beauvoir Town – aka the St Tropez of Islington – you’ll find Goodbye Horses, yet another wine bar and small-plates affair. This one just so happens to also be a pour-over coffee shop called Day Trip, and is named in honour of the moody 1980s synthpop song by Q Lazzarus. So far, so north London.  This former pub has been spruced up accordingly. There are white-washed brick walls, swirling Marc Chagall-esque scribbles across a vast fabric lighting fixture that runs the length of the bar and sturdy, low wooden tables that you can’t quite cross your legs under. A vintage 1970s Tannoy Lancaster speaker hangs imposingly in each corner of the long room, and all must pass the wall of 4,000 vinyl records as they enter. Fancy Swiss architects have been involved in revamping the space and it looks sleek, clean and very, very expensive. Who needs comfort when you have style?  Charming and enthusiastic staff seriously know their stuff This though, is a wine bar, not a toddler’s soft-play centre, and here the grape is king – especially those of the organic and biodynamic variety. Charming and enthusiastic staff seriously know their stuff, and sample sips and sloshes are dished out when trying to find a wine matched to a guest’s mood and fripperies. We begin with a perfectly pink and fabulously fizzy Bruno Rochard Folie des Grains served in a glass cutely etched with the bar’s endearing equine logo. It is liquid, x-rated strawberries and all...

It might look like a classic London pub from the outside, all Britain in Bloom-worthy hanging baskets and an extremely pub-like name picked out in gold lettering, but the Camberwell Arms is not a place to watch the footie or sink eight pints and waddle home semi-conscious (maybe try the Hermits Cave across the road for such tomfoolery). Locals have known this for the past decade, ever since the grand Victorian boozer was given a serious sprucing up in 2014 under the auspices of chef director Mike Davies. Mike had form; starting out at one of south London’s original gastropubs, the Anchor & Hope in Waterloo, before setting up another south London institution, the much-loved hipster HQ that is Frank’s rooftop bar in Peckham.  ‘Sublime’ doesn’t even begin to do it justice. It is nothing less than art Since then, the Camberwell Arms has remained the very picture of modesty. Settle into the spacious back room, an airy but still-intimate space, and the lack of fanfare (stripped wooden floorboards and the occasional stylish print is about as close to grandiose design as it gets here) only goes to prove how confident they are in the quality of the food. Who needs jazzed-up interiors when the cooking is this compelling?  The menu is short but not too short, seasonal without being smug, and features a wry nod to the room’s pub past; a starter of beer onions on toast with aged gruyère. It’s a frankly indecent snack, snaked with sloppy boozed-up ribbons of onions, the particularly...

Since its opening in 2016, the outwardly unassuming Dalston cocktail bar Three Sheets – owned and run by brothers Max and Noel Venning – has become a city-wide favourite, known for the inventiveness and quality of its drinks, which often play on established classics. Unsurprisingly then, for Three Sheets’ second iteration, the Vennings have pulled up in Soho, London’s storied cocktail hub, to launch a new menu of brilliantly re-thought standards upon a more central crowd. While the Dalston spot is narrower and more secret-feeling – maybe a touch cooler, if you really want me to say it – the W1 iteration adapts to its new surroundings. It’s warmer and fancier, all soft, inviting booths and dark wood. So far, so Soho.  The Mezcal Sunset is the grown-up older sister of a tequila sunrise, only more Ibiza than Benidorm In keeping with Soho tradition, you must – once you are installed in your plush seat, or on your bar stool – begin with a martini. The Three Sheets bartenders are seasoned pros, who will make yours however you like it, but the house Dirty Martini is worth a go even if you’re a purist. Done with Belvedere, a little olive oil, and some Koseret tea to take the edge off the booze, it’s a gentler take on the OG, and even those who like the drink blisteringly alcoholic will appreciate the riff. For something more serene as you’re getting settled in, go for Three Sheets’ signature pre-bottled French 75 – a bubbly blend of gin and Chardonnay, plus some lilting...

On first appearances, Harwood Arms is an actual, honest-to-goodness pub, the kind of place where you could wander up to the bar and sink a pint (without drowning in embarassment). It's all warm exposed wood and unfussy British comfort, a cosy, slightly countrified haven on an unlikely Fulham back street. But look a bit more closely at the details – a ritzy ostrich feather lampshade here, a flourish of antlers there – and you'll quickly realise that something a little more elaborate is going on (and that maybe running an iron over your outfit might have been wise). After all, this is London's only Michelin-starred gastropub, and locals and tourists alike will book weeks in advance to worship at the altar of its luxe game-focused menu. The presentation is all fine dining fanciness, the textures are precision-honed, but the flavours are remixed versions of time-honoured British standbys The daily line-up is short and changes often, but it's stuffed with local produce, British flavours, and a pretty-much-guaranteed starring role for venison, treated with a delicacy that contrasts with the chunky boards and plates it's served on. On our visit, a plate of red deer tongue looked as pinkly pretty as a dessert, with its delicate ruby orbs of beetroot and blobs of quince paste offsetting the gaminess of the main event. The goat's cheese and onion tart was more suited to anyone with sentimental feelings about Bambi, but far from the kind of back-of-the-deep-freeze standby your...