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Cocktails

A Bar with Shapes for a Name.

Cocktail bar · Haggerston · $$$ · Legend · verified

232 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8AX

walk-in

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A Bar with Shapes for a Name

The name is a yellow triangle, a red square and a blue circle, the Bauhaus primary forms, and the bar takes the school's function-first argument seriously: drinks are engineered and batched in advance so service is pouring, not performing. It runs until 4am every night of the week.

Why go

Remy Savage ran Little Red Door in Paris and then the bar at The Artesian before opening this Kingsland Road room in 2021 with Artesian colleague Paul Lougrat and Maria Kontorravdis (50 Best Discovery). The pedigree shows as restraint: no back-bar branding, staff in colored boiler suits, and a short list of house inventions like the Sotolon, gin with Bramley apple, fenugreek, agave and gentian, or a negroni rounded out with coconut oil. It debuted at No. 37 on the World's 50 Best Bars list in 2022, hit No. 35 in 2023, and sits at No. 73 on the 2025 extended list. The team also runs Bauhaus Warehaus, a production space where the batching and R&D happen (Wallpaper*).

Order this / avoid

  • Order: the Sotolon, the coconut-oil negroni, or the Kazimir, vodka infused with peach yogurt and absinthe, which Time Out singles out along with a Campari-jelly garnish.
  • Avoid: expecting bartending theater. The drinks arrive fast and finished by design; if you want flair and a chat about bitters, this room will read as austere.

What locals & experts say

  • Time Out London (2025): 5/5; a super late night and super stylish cocktail den with no velvet drapes, no backlit bottles, no flamboyant shaker action.1
  • World's 50 Best Bars: No. 35 in 2023, No. 73 in 2025; the Discovery profile credits the founding trio and the house signatures.2

Good to know

  • Timing: daily, 5pm to 4am; one of the few serious cocktail rooms in London pouring at that hour.
  • Booking: walk-ins all night; no velvet rope, no list.
  • Location: 232 Kingsland Rd in Haggerston, the stretch some coverage files under Dalston; the address on the door is E2 8AX.

Craft signals (cocktails: a short list held on purpose)

No evolution: value is recorded here. The concept is a Bauhaus argument applied to a bar, which means a deliberately short list of named house drinks built to pre-batch precision by a team out of The Artesian and Little Red Door, with the coconut-oil negroni and Sotolon as original constructions rather than seasonal variations. A list that does not turn because each drink is a finished object is not the static-list problem the ranking penalizes; the discipline is the craft. Where movement would be evidence, here consistency is, and the field stays off rather than reading as a demerit.

Verdict

should-visit — Worth the detour for drinkers who care about method: an Artesian-pedigree team running a Bauhaus argument about what a bar is, with drinks engineered in advance so a 2am round tastes identical to a 7pm one. World's 50 Best placement three lists running says the craft is real; the slide from No. 35 to the extended list, and a concept that reads cold to some, keep it off the top rung.

Order

  • Sotolon: gin with Bramley apple, fenugreek, agave and gentian
  • The coconut-oil negroni
  • Kazimir, peach-yogurt vodka with absinthe

At a glance

  • Booking: walk-in
  • Timing: open late
  • Best for: drinks, date, big night, solo
  • Verified 2026-07-29

Who vouches

a chef picks it · James Manning wrote about it

  • “But for all its braininess, this neighbourhood bar in Haggerston never forgets that you're here to have fun.”

    James Manning, critic · Time Out London, review of A Bar with Shapes for a Name, 5 of 5 · 2025-07-07

  • “Best cocktail spot in London: a bar with shapes for a name. When everyone hears that name for the first time they're like, what?”

    Anne-Sophie Pic, chef-patron · TOPJAW · 2024-11-30

Where

city map →

232 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8AX

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Key: what the badges mean

★ Michelin star · Bib Bib Gourmand · Green ★ Michelin Green Star · Michelin in the Michelin guide, no distinction · J Jeff's own note · Jeff ★★★★☆ 2019 his own rating out of five, and the year he gave it · new the venue itself opened recently · just added recently added to Jeff's list, whatever its age · 2◆ independent chef/industry recommendations · ! hygiene caution in force · ? no current public hygiene record, not a caution · keep walking Jeff has been and would walk past it · the line under a name says when to go: Destination (plan around it) / Solid (the dependable send) / Listed (on the radar). Under it, where the entry states one: how the room takes bookings, and the date I last checked the entry.

Record

page id
a-bar-with-shapes-for-a-name
city
London
group
Cocktails
category
Bar
cuisine
Cocktail bar
area
Haggerston
price
$$$
editorial class
Legend
verdict
Should visit
how I know
verified
confidence
high
status
Open
address
232 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8AX
coordinates
51.535674, -0.076729
last verified
2026-07-29