London holds the most decorated hotel bar in the world. It also holds a Bethnal Green room with no website and no menu, a Holborn cocktail parlor with live jazz nightly, and a Hammersmith Italian institution that has barely changed its menu in thirty years. The city drinks across more registers than any in Europe.
What follows is the directory. The bars worth a seat, the restaurants worth a reservation, the hotels worth the stay.
Where We Drink
Holborn, Mayfair, Old Street, Bethnal Green. Four rooms across central and East London, in the order that makes sense for a long week.
- BAR
Scarfes Bar
Holborn (Rosewood London)A fireplace-warmed cocktail room in Rosewood London on Holborn, named for the Gerald Scarfe political caricatures that line the walls. Yann Bouvignies' program holds World's #31 in 2025; live jazz nightly; the room reads like a slightly louche gentleman's club without any of the formality. Best for a long winter evening or a post-theater drink that turns into three.
Order: Hot-Air Balloon, a dangerously easy-to-drink twist on an Old Fashioned.
252 High Holborn, London WC1V 7EN, UK - BAR
Connaught Bar
Mayfair (The Connaught)The most decorated hotel bar in the world, three-time World's #1 (2020, 2021, currently #6 in 2025), inside the Connaught in Mayfair. Agostino Perrone's room, an Art Deco palace where the Martini Trolley arrives tableside, the bartender chooses the gin, and the bitters are dropped from a height. Best for a single perfect drink before dinner; not the place to settle in.
Order: a martini. Have it built tableside.
Carlos Place, Mayfair, London W1K 2AL, UK - BAR
Tayēr + Elementary
Old Street / ShoreditchA two-format cocktail destination on Old Street from Monica Berg and Alex Kratena, World's #5 in 2025. Tayēr is the experimental seasonal program at the dimly-lit back bar; Elementary is the daytime version that runs more casual. Best for an early evening at Elementary or a properly committed late-night session at Tayēr.
Order: at Tayēr, the seasonal flight. At Elementary, a milk punch.
152 Old Street, London EC1V 9BW, UK - BAR
Satan's Whiskers
Bethnal GreenA loud, hip-hop-soundtracked cocktail room in Bethnal Green with no website, no menu, and no reservations. The bartender asks what you want and builds from there; World's #21 in 2025 and a perennial East London standard-bearer. Best for a late night after dinner nearby.
Order: tell them a spirit and a mood. Let them work.
343 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9RA, UK
Where We Eat
A Hammersmith Italian institution and a City of London Indian dining room with a serious bar.
- RESTAURANT
The River Café
HammersmithThe Hammersmith Italian institution since 1987, Ruth Rogers' wood-oven temple where Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and April Bloomfield all came up through the kitchen. The Tuscan-led menu has barely changed in thirty years and the Italian wine list runs deep. Best for a long lunch on the riverside terrace in summer.
Thames Wharf, Rainville Road, London W6 9HA, UK - RESTAURANT
Brigadiers
City of London (Bloomberg Arcade)A sport-on-the-screens, beer-cellar-deep, military-mess-themed Indian dining room from JKS Restaurants. Tandoor-led menu, the tikka chaat is the calling card, and the cocktail program (whisky-led, Indian single malts featured) is one of the rare cases in London where the bar and the kitchen earn equal billing. Best for a weekday lunch with people from work, or any City evening that needs to run late.
1-5 Bloomberg Arcade, London EC4N 8AR, UK
Where We Stay
The Mayfair grand hotel since 1856 and the 2023 reopening of the Old War Office on Whitehall.
- HOTEL
Claridge's
MayfairThe canonical London grand hotel in Mayfair since 1856, World's 50 Best Hotels #16. The Art Deco lobby is the city's most photographed; Claridge's Bar (since 1856) and the Fumoir are both excellent drinking rooms. The Foyer at afternoon tea is a London institution in its own right.
Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 4HR, UK - HOTEL
Raffles London at The OWO
WhitehallThe 2023 reopening of the Old War Office on Whitehall, World's 50 Best Hotels #31. Six bars and restaurants on property (including the Saint-Laurent-styled Guards Bar and Mauro Colagreco's three-star restaurant Mauro Colagreco), the Spa at Guerlain in residence. Churchill ran World War II from offices in the building; the rooms now occupy what were once Cabinet War briefing chambers.
57 Whitehall, London SW1A 2BX, UK