Cocktail culture has moved through different moods: the elegance of pre-war hotel bars, the secrecy and romance of Prohibition-era drinking dens, the post-war obsession with classics and today’s era of experimental and ingredient-led mixology. In a city like London, fast, crowded and rarely quiet, cocktail bars offer a kind of escapism on demand, from a rooftop view, a basement speakeasy or a neighbourhood spot that feels like it was designed for regulars.
In this guide, we take a closer look at the best cocktail bars in London.
History
The cocktail, in its modern form, is a fairly precise invention. A measured drink built on balance, dilution and temperature as much as flavour. Its roots sit in 19th-century American bar culture, where “cocktail” first came to mean a bracing mix of spirit, sugar, water and bitters, before travelling through hotel bars, transatlantic drinking habits and the social rituals that formed around them.
Best Hotel Bar: Rivoli Bar at The Ritz
The Rivoli Bar at The Ritz is unapologetically theatrical, all Lalique glass, gilded domes and Art Deco glamour that’s designed to feel like stepping into a golden jewellery box just off Piccadilly. It leans into the fantasy of cocktail culture between the wars, but the drinks aren’t a museum piece.
Alongside year-round classics and house signatures, the menu includes a playful and more experimental section titled Biodynamic Forces, where cocktails arrive with a hint of astrology and plenty of ceremony. Some are poured tableside, some finished with Champagne and the overall effect is deliberately indulgent. There’s also an excellent wine and Champagne list, plus bar food that runs from club sandwiches to caviar.
Best Speakeasy: Nightjar Shoreditch
Nightjar has a way of making London feel very far away. Hidden below street level in Shoreditch, with a sister bar in Soho, it leans hard into Prohibition-era glamour, pairing jazz and blues sets with skilled cocktail making. It’s the kind of place that ‘entirely suspends reality’, according to The Pinnacle Guide, which has awarded Nightjar a Pin for Excellence and has also featured in the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list.
The menu reads like a timeline, moving through pre-Prohibition, Prohibition and post-war chapters, alongside Nightjar signatures and sharing serves (regulars often leave with a pack of Nightjar playing cards featuring each section). Weekend live music slots can book up more than six weeks ahead, though a handful of walk-ins are released nightly on a first-come, first-served basis.
Best Modern Cocktail Lab: Tayēr + Elementary, Old Street
Run by couple Alex Kratena and Monica Berg, Tayēr + Elementary is not one, but two contemporary and industrial style bars near Old Street in East London. Based around a long, wooden worktop and sharing table, the bar out front, Elementary, focuses on simplicity, offering a reliable list of the pair’s now classic cocktails, such as a Cedarwood Old Fashioned and Vetiver Negroni, as well as the now famous One Sip Martini, their own line of wines and beers made in collaboration with Partizan. Meanwhile, hidden out the back is Tayēr, Kratena and Berg’s dimly lit experimental cocktail lab, where drinks are mixed on a striking central island in real time. Here, guests will find a daily-changing list of weird and wonderful concoctions crafted using seasonal produce and a combination of modern and old-fashioned techniques.
Best Rooftop Bar: Savage Garden
Perched 12 floors above Tower Hill, Savage Garden is one of the City’s most striking skyline bars, featuring decadent interiors, dramatic cocktails and a panoramic view that takes in everything from The Shard to the Tower of London.
Inside, the design is deliberately contradictory, brutal yet sultry, urban yet opulent, with reflective, scored ‘savaged’ surfaces offset by plush velvet finishes and marbleised floors. For private events, ‘Wildside’ is the main draw, a large, north-facing terrace designed for all seasons thanks to its retractable roof, while a second terrace comes into its own on warmer days and overlooks the City.
The cocktail menu matches the setting: bold, inventive and built around a unique “elements” concept, with serves inspired by lemon, peach, banana and mint, each with its own story-led name and flavour profile. Savage Garden has also partnered with The Drinks Trust, creating a dedicated selection of cocktails featuring the charity’s logo, with 25p from every drink sold donated to support vital work across the drinks and hospitality industry.
Best Neighbourhood Bar: Little Mercies, Crouch End
Opened in October 2018, Little Mercies is a multi-award-winning neighbourhood cocktail bar and restaurant in Crouch End and one that’s quickly become a North London essential. It may be best known for its drinks, but the food menu is just as much a draw, with an impressively strong selection of bar snacks, bites and weekend brunch plates that feel like one of the area’s best-kept secrets.
The bar was launched by Venning Brothers Noel and Max (Three Sheets) alongside Alan Frost, bringing serious cocktail pedigree to a part of London that hasn’t historically been known for it. Sustainability also sits at the heart of what they do, earning them Top 50 Cocktail Bars’ Sustainable Bar of the Year multiple times, including 2022, 2023 and again in 2025.
The cocktail list is a smart, well-balanced mix of classics, reworked crowd-pleasers and house creations, with past highlights including a Winter Negroni, made with mulled gin, damson and plum vermouth, the hot Biscoffee, made with buttered Biscoff Jameson whiskey, salted coffee, Mr Black’s and a Banana Americano built with Victory Bitter, Aluna Coconut Rum and sweet vermouth.
London’s cocktail scene in 2026 is in exceptionally good shape, spanning old-school glamour, speakeasy nostalgia, boundary-pushing modern labs and quietly brilliant local bars that still feel under the radar. If the mood calls for live jazz, skyline views, classics or something entirely unexpected, these are the places where the city’s nights tend to start well and often end even better.
