The best LGBTQ+ venues in the UK – chosen by queer icons

‘In a city that’s constantly evolving, it’s important to have consistent pillars like Dalston Superstore: it’s like the town hall of East London. Walking in is like a sweaty, tight hug. I love the basement: the walls are dripping, the strobe is flashing, and it feels like some raw club in Brooklyn or Berlin. I once saw a drag queen death-drop off the bar and fracture a limb upstairs.’ – Jodie Harsh, DJ and drag queen

‘London’s most incredible corridor! It’s been a staple of Dalston, of the scene, of my entire time in London. It’s sexy, it’s friendly, it’s scary — as all good queer clubs should be. After so many venue closures, DSS has remained a home from home for so many people. Honey Dijon was there just recently, playing a set in one of the places that always welcomed her before she became world renowned.’ – Tom Rasmussen, musician

‘It’s one of those rare places I truly feel that ‘queer joy’ that everyone’s always going on about. There’s a reason it’s everyone’s favourite club – it feels like home (if your home happened to have gay porn projected on the ceiling). It’s approximately two feet wall to wall – a glorified corridor, really, which forces you to interact with the people around you. They’ve got nights for every niche of the queer community you can think of. Weekly trans nights, bi nights, drag brunch, queer open decks. The crowd is never the same day to day.’ – Lynks, musician 

‘It was the first venue I went to when I moved to Dalston in 2014. I had just left Hull which was not exactly teeming with gays or queer venues, so this felt like a haven. A stand out memory is playing there for the first time at Femme Fraiche a couple of years ago, after wanting to play there for years. It’s always been more than just a club.’  – I Jordan, DJ and producer

‘Dan and the team have created something so special with DSS: you can feel it as soon as you walk through the door. It’s a true queer-led community space, where everyone feels loved, respected and happy. By day it’s chilled with great food, coffee and end of day drinks. By night it fills up with the best tunes, wild and wonderful people and amazing, incredible performers. It’s been essential for supporting artists from the ground up.’ – Meriel Armitage, founder of Club Mexicana

‘Gay’s The Word is a lovely little bookshop which sells queer books and regularly hosts events for the community. A minute walk away, you’ll find Fork [Deli], a queer-owned coffee shop by day and wine bar by night. Grab a new book then find a nice spot outside in the sun with a delicious sandwich, sweet treat and a cheeky coffee (or wine). It’s the perfect spot to watch the word go by whilst supporting LGBTQ+ small businesses.’ – Layton Williams, actor 

Layton stars in 'Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club' until Sept 21. 'Layton & Nikita Live!' takes place at Theatre Royal Drury Lane London on July 16.

‘It’s quite naff, but one of the best nights out I’ve ever had was at Viaduct. It’s a gay bar in Leeds and my mate Jodie took me there when we were in our early twenties. As I remember it, there was a drag act pretty much every 15 minutes. It was amazing stuff; we were just mesmerised.’ – Chloe Petts, comedian

Chloe Petts’ debut five-part stand-up series, Chloe Petts’ Toilet Humour, is available now on BBC Sounds. 

‘When we did CLUB HEAT at Electrowerkz it was such a magical, sweaty and positive expressive energy. Our director, David Wilson, suggested the venue as the perfect location for the shoot, as it is a space with so much history in the London queer partying scene. It has a raw industrial feel that evokes the feeling of hedonism, even when it is empty.’ – Tove Lo and SG Lewis, singer and DJ/producer

‘The [recently closed] Glory was in Haggerston. On the outside, it was an east end boozer. On the inside it was a glittering bunting-filled haven of colour, anarchy and eyelashes – a queer paradise of crop tops, moustaches and pints of gay lager. It birthed an array of incredible artists: Freida Slaves, Barbs, Sharon Le Grande. They really paved the way for a punk drag style that was about performance instead of polish. It was London culture; it was intimate and raw and continued to be so right up to when they closed their doors this year. Luckily, they relocated up the Kingsland Road as The Divine so not all is lost.’ – Bimini Bon Boulash, drag queen

‘The Turbine is a tiny little theatre in Battersea that opened just before the pandemic. It’s not exclusively queer but it really platforms new queer writing. My show ‘My Son’s A Queer’ started there nearly three years ago, and the musical version of ‘But I’m A Cheerleader’. The whole team working there is queer-led from the front of house staff to backstage, the producing team and the audiences too. It just feels like a tiny little pocket of safety and expression, and I think it’s a great example of how queerness is infiltrating into the fabric of our culture via small, incremental changes.’ – Rob Madge, musical theatre actor and playwright

‘The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) has such an iconic history and has supported my projects over the years, especially the wild and wonderful ones that fall outside mainstream brands. It still feels underground, which I absolutely love. My favourite memory is from two years ago when we held the Loverboy music event; I was very vulnerable as it was my first time showcasing something outside of fashion. The ICA is a unique space where you can see works by Derek Jarman and Juliana Huxtable in one place: it’s like a Pandora’s box of queer expression, making it accessible to the masses. I also love its proximity to Buckingham Palace.’ – Charles Jeffrey, fashion designer

The Lore of Loverboy is on at Somerset House until September 1. 

‘Peel Park in Salford will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s where the Pink Picnic, the equivalent to Salford Pride, is hosted, which is always such a fun and inclusive event. When I was a student, my accommodation literally looked out onto Peel Park. One morning, when my housemates and I had had a few too many lemonades the night before, we happened to stumble upon the Pink Picnic. At the time I had no idea that I was even queer so to see such an inclusive space in a part of the world that can typically be quite lad-y was unreal. It’s so important that smaller communities are celebrating pride and queer joy, as well as the bigger cities like Manchester and London.’ – Charley Marlowe, comedian

‘I’ve always loved Dalston superstore but I’d have to say my favourite venue is VFD: it’s a tiny very DIY venue in a basement just up the road. Back in 2018 they did a monthly non-binary night which was special and so when I released my fourth album POWERHOUSE we threw a party there, which was amazing. Being in a basement gives it a bit of a punk feeling and when I’ve been there on trans nights it’s usually packed with cuties from the community. These spaces are super important because we need to see each other, have fun and be able to express ourselves.’ – Planningtorock, producer

‘It isn’t an explicitly LGBTQ venue, but the Star and Shadow is still my favourite queer space. It’s a volunteer-run music venue, cinema, cafe and gardening project in Ouseburn, Newcastle. It does loads of great film screenings, club nights and live music events, a number of which are queer-focused. The thing that makes it feel particularly queer for me is how community focused it is. Everything that’s programmed is decided upon by the people who use it. I’ve seen loads of weird, radical queer cinema from the 1980s there. Rock n Doris used to be based there, which is this classic lesbian night in Newcastle.’ – David Cumming, actor and playwright

‘There are no LGBTQ+ clubs anymore, instead there are nights that pop up at straight venues – the best of which is Adonis. As a queer kid you grow up with the assumption that the golden age of LGBTQ+ culture has gone, so it’s rare when you find yourself at the centre of a new queer phenomena. Adonis is the best of UK culture: ruff, raw, London as hell and very politically charged. Its home is The Cause: a brutalist warehouse complex by the river in no man’s land, Canning Town. It’s one of the few legal spots with great leadership with a mortal compass. Stuart who runs it is driven by the love of London and its culture over money.’ – Gideön, DJ and promoter

Gideon is set to become part of the team at the new rooftop social club in west London, The Roof Gardens, which opens later this year

‘The Common Press is a gorgeous queer bookshop in Shoreditch, London, with events regularly held around the books and in the basement. If you’re like me, you get the same electric jolt from huffing a new hardback as you do from popping the top on some poppers. You can dip into anything from panels on The Colour Purple to conversations between trans parents to queer kizomba to I Kissed A Girl finale screenings. In central and east London, it’s rare to find spaces where queer and trans people of colour are regularly celebrated, where they consistently lead and are centred. TCP does that, and more.’ – Sophie Duker, comedian

‘Colour Factory isn’t specifically a LGBTQ+ venue but it has to be mentioned due to how it has supported Pxssy Palace and many other queer events, allowing us to see our visions. A giant disco ball hangs high above the dance floor, shattering the light into a million tiny reflections. From the mezzanine, you can watch the crowd below move in unison and it feels like you are watching a movie. In my opinion it has the best smoking area of the clubs in London, a secret garden tucked away behind the brick walls. Plants climb the sides, and the rumble of the overhead train becomes a familiar backdrop. The great thing about Colour Factory is that it attracts different crowds for different nights depending what you are into, whatever your niche you can find there.’ – Nadine Noor, founder of Pxssy Palace

‘This restaurant is down a little side street near the canal in Hackney, London, with the most unassuming entrance that leads to the most gloriously light, wonderful room within. The team behind it always throw the best parties in the best venues, when not in their lovely warehouse. It’s where all genders are celebrated with incredible style. The crowd has always been a fantastic mix of art, fashion, music, publishing and every other fun discipline you could possibly imagine. Their most recent celebration of 20 years of Bistrotheque was a knockout.’ – Jeremy Lee, chef proprietor at Quo Vadis