The Best Bars in London: A Neighbourhood Guide

Finding the best bars in London isn’t really about picking one winner, because the city’s drinking scene is too varied and too spread out to sum up in a single list. What you actually want depends entirely on the night you’re planning. Rooftop views, hidden speakeasies, riverside terraces, or a proper old pub with a serious cocktail list, London has all of it, often within a few streets of each other.

Finding the Best Bars in London: Rooftop and Riverside

London’s rooftop bar scene has exploded over the past decade, and it’s now one of the first things visitors ask about. The best rooftop spots tend to cluster around the City and Shoreditch, where converted office blocks and hotel terraces offer sweeping views over the skyline, often taking in landmarks like the Shard, the Gherkin and St Paul’s all from the same spot. Summer evenings up there are hard to beat, though plenty of rooftop bars now have heated sections and covered areas that keep them going through the colder months too.

Riverside bars offer a different kind of view but an equally strong atmosphere, particularly along the South Bank and around Bankside. There’s something about drinking with the Thames right in front of you, boats drifting past and the lights of the opposite bank reflecting on the water, that makes even a fairly ordinary bar feel like an occasion. These spots get busy fast on warm evenings, so turning up early or booking ahead is worth doing if you’ve got your eye on a particular one. For a broader look at where to base an evening out, our guide to London after dark rounds up more of the city’s social scene beyond just bars.

Speakeasies and Hidden Cocktail Bars

If you want something with more theatre to it, London’s hidden bar scene is enormous. Speakeasy-style venues are tucked behind unmarked doors, inside phone boxes, through the back of barbershops, or down unassuming staircases in basements you’d never notice from the street. Part of the appeal is the search itself, and part of it is the payoff once you’re inside and find a moody, carefully designed space with a cocktail list that’s been put together with genuine craft.

These bars tend to specialise, whether that’s a focus on rare whiskies, elaborate multi-step cocktails involving smoke or theatrical presentation, or a tightly curated menu built around a single spirit. Because they’re often small, many operate on a booking-only basis or cap walk-ins, so it’s worth checking ahead if there’s somewhere specific you want to try. Mayfair and Soho both have a strong concentration of this style of bar, often within streets that look completely unremarkable from the outside.

Traditional Pubs Turned Cocktail Spots

One of the more interesting shifts in London’s drinking scene has been watching classic pubs reinvent themselves without losing their character. Plenty of centuries-old pubs across the city have added serious cocktail programmes alongside their traditional ales, so you can get a properly made negroni in a room with exposed beams and a fireplace that’s been there for two hundred years. It’s a distinctly London combination, and it tends to appeal to people who want the atmosphere of a proper pub without being limited to beer and wine.

These hybrid spots are scattered throughout the city but are particularly common in areas like Clerkenwell and Fitzrovia, where a slightly older, more established drinking culture has blended with newer cocktail trends over the last fifteen years or so.

Best Areas for a Bar Crawl

Soho remains the classic choice for anyone wanting to bar hop without much planning. The streets are dense with venues of every style, from tiny cocktail dens to sprawling multi-floor bars, and everything is within easy walking distance. It gets loud and busy, especially on weekends, but that’s very much part of the appeal.

Shoreditch offers a more east London, slightly grittier version of the same idea, with converted warehouses and independent bars that often stay open later than their central counterparts. Mayfair, by contrast, is where you go for a more polished, dressed-up night, with elegant hotel bars and members’ club style venues that suit a special occasion rather than a casual wander. Whichever area you choose, the best approach in London is usually to pick a neighbourhood, commit to it for the night, and let the bars themselves guide the pace rather than trying to cross the whole city in one evening.

Still deciding where to go next? Our guide to How to Enjoy London’s Social Scene as a Visitor might help.