still serving late

Destination · Cocktail bar · Mayfair · $$$$

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The current menu, Stream, holds the same ten drinks for its entire life and rewrites their recipes as the seasons move, so Stem currently arrives as cognac infused with argan oil, Michter's rye, Acqua Bianca, Persian cordial, new-make wine and coriander bitters (The World's 50 Best…

Destination · Cocktail bar · Bethnal Green · $$

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Nothing here is pre-batched.

Destination · Thai · Chinatown · $$

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Luke Farrell keeps a jungle microclimate at Ryewater Nursery in Dorset and grows the regional Thai herb varieties, green papaya, Thai limes and chillies himself, because as Jay Rayner put it, imported frozen herbs "are diminished" (The Observer; venue site).

Destination · Cocktail bar · South Bank · $$$

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In October 2024 The Pinnacle Guide gave Lyaness the first three-pin award it had ever issued, out of an inaugural list of 37 bars in which twelve reached two pins and nobody reached three (The Spirits Business).

Destination · Thai · Marylebone · $$$$

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There is no rice.

Destination · Poitin & craft beer · Bethnal Green · $$

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The bar holds the world's largest legal collection of poitin, Ireland's pre-legalization spirit, which still gets bottled anywhere from 40 to 90 percent (Time Out, 50 Best Discovery).

Destination · Ale & cider · Gospel Oak · $

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Time Out calls it the "only dedicated ale and cider house in London to sell only beers and ciders from small independent UK breweries," which is the buying rule the pub holds to (Time Out, October 2024).

Solid · Cocktail bar · Haggerston · $$$

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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.

Solid · Cocktail bar · Shoreditch · $$$

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The December 2025 list runs a basil and mascarpone fat wash through the vodka, a French toast fat wash through the Breakfast Martini, and clarified carrot and orange through a Harvey Wallbanger, which is prep-kitchen labor served in a coupe.

Solid · Cocktail bar · Shoreditch · $$$

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The Orkney Breezer comes filtered through a sheep's pancreas, and the Breakfast Bellini uses century beans, a twist on Japan's century eggs (Time Out).

Solid · Craft beer · Bermondsey · $$

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The brewing left for Croydon in March 2020 and the arch stayed, so this is now the one room in London built solely around drinking what Anspach & Hobday make (Anspach & Hobday).

Destination · Turkish · Enfield · $

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They cook every order in front of the room on an enormous convex iron plate, which is the piece of kit tantuni is built around and the reason Mersin tantuni does not taste like a kebab (Enfield Dispatch, 2026).

Solid · Cocktail bar · Fitzrovia · $$$

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The house Negroni is built on chacha, the Georgian grape-pomace spirit, with pomegranate and sagan dalya tea, and The Infatuation called it "one of London's finest cocktails".

Solid · Cocktail bar · Holborn · $$$$

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Andy Loudon puts the bar's method on the record plainly: "the DNA of our drinks lies in our technical processes, our ability to distil, clarify, and rectify ingredients in our lab is something we take great pride in," and the clearest proof is his Sazerac riff served with a…

Solid · Wine pub · Islington · $$

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Sylvain Bertozzi took a pub on Essex Road, kept the bar and the wine list, and gave the kitchen away to a rotating residency, which is why the food here has already changed hands once (Hot Dinners).

Solid · Cocktail bar · Dalston · $$

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The bar has no name on the door, so it answers to its own postcode: a dark frontage on Kingsland Road with the address over it and nothing else (The Nudge).

Solid · Craft beer · Soho · $$

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Up to ten cask ales and two or three ciders on handpump, with over twenty craft keg taps behind them, a hundred and fifty meters from Piccadilly Circus (CAMRA).

Solid · Gastropub · Stoke Newington · $$

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The Sunday roast starts at noon and stops when it sells out.

Solid · Wine bar · Hackney Road · $$

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Michael Sager built the bar top out of old London paving stones and put huge windows into a small converted East End pub, and has been pouring cellar-level wine by the glass out of it since 2013 (The World's 50 Best Bars).

Solid · Craft beer taproom · Walworth · $$

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Nine taps, and Orbit brewed every beer on them across the road, on the same Walworth arch site it started on in 2014.

Solid · Craft beer tank bar · Hackney Wick · $$

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Ten conditioning tanks of a thousand litres each stand behind the bar and the staff pour straight out of them, so the beer has never been in a keg, a cask or a bottle.

Solid · Bagels · Brick Lane · $

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About 3,000 beigels a day come out of 159 Brick Lane, boiled first and then baked, on a recipe that reached the Cohens from a small bakery in Stamford Hill.

Solid · Ale & cider · King's Cross · $

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The branch chair's reason for sending people here is a three percent beer: "It's well known for serving one of the best pints of Trinity, brewed by Tottenham's Redemption Brewery and at only 3% ABV, it's remarkably tasty and worth a visit to the Queen's Head for that alone" (CAMRA…

Solid · Aperitivo bar · Soho · $$

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The negronis at Bar Termini are batched and aged before service, so the drink hits the table in seconds at exactly the strength and dilution Tony Conigliaro designed.

Solid · Craft beer · Brixton · $$

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Booma shut its own restaurant across the road after ten years and moved the charcoal tandoors into this pub.

Solid · Ale & cider · Stroud Green · $

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Six cask lines with a written rule behind them: a mild, a bitter, a stout or porter, a session ale, a ruby or brown, and a very strong IPA, on at all times, from small and independent UK breweries only (venue).

Solid · Craft beer dive bar · Dalston · $$

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Sixteen keg lines, a bottle list built on 750ml sharing formats, and not one handpump in the building.

Solid · Craft beer · Camberwell · $

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No kitchen, by design: Stormbird lets you carry food in from the street, including Silk Road up the road, and keeps its entire operation pointed at six changing handpumps and fifteen keg lines (Pellicle).

Solid · Craft beer · Bethnal Green · $$

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Six cask lines, about fifty bottles drawn from the UK, Scandinavia and the US, and a keg range CAMRA's East London and City branch calls "ever changing," all in a corner pub up a side street off Bethnal Green Road (CAMRA, February 2026).

Solid · Kurdish-Turkish · Harringay · $

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On a street where every second window advertises lahmacun, The Infatuation's Jake Missing says this one "actually tastes of lamb", and tells you to eat it straight, without salads or sauces.

Solid · Craft beer · Brixton · $$

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Verdant put its name over this railway arch as a residency, which is a brewery vouching for whoever is choosing the beer (Craft Metropolis, Untappd).

Listed · Dive/metal pub · Camden · $$

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The kitchen that made this metal pub a food destination, LD's, whose vegan roast Time Out ranked third best in London, played its final service here on 29 March 2026, and the all-vegan kitchen that replaced it has not been named by anyone (Time Out, venue).

Listed · Lebanese grill · Farringdon · $

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Camden's licensing panel had to read a 380-page objection pack before it could rule on this charcoal grill, and on 4 December 2025 it took away the shop's permission to serve between 11pm and 1am (Camden New Journal).