Little Bat.

Little Bat

James Cochran, who cooked at The Ledbury and The Harwood Arms and ran 12:51, took over the food here in April 2025, so a ten-year-old Islington cocktail bar now serves his buttermilk fried chicken under a jerk-spiced hot honey glaze (Restaurant).

Why go

Richard Wynne opened this in March 2016 as his second site after Callooh Callay in Shoreditch, and named it for the Mad Hatter's rewrite of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (Pub & Bar, The Nudge). For the first nine years the kitchen was the weak half: at opening the bar borrowed snacks from Zilouf across the road while it looked for a chef (Hot Dinners). Cochran fixed that. His April 2025 menu runs beer-battered oysters in bresaola ox sauce, jerk-spiced mangalitza shoulder with chadon beni chimichurri, and cured and torched Cornish mackerel with hazelnut tahini and lardo, and he rewrote the drinks list at the same time. The room is three spaces deep, a plant-hung front, a library at the bar, then sofas and Pure Evil artwork at the back.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the buttermilk fried chicken with jerk-spiced hot honey. Time Out's line on it: whose jerk fried chicken is the powerfully crispy stuff of legend1. Then the Devil's Water, which Time Out describes as four types in fact, plus miso and ginger, all clarified with milk. The martinis come three ways, vodka, gin or vesper, out of the freezer. Weekend brunch runs 11am to 3pm and the hash browns with confit egg yolk are the reason to take it.
• Avoid: Mondays, which are dark. And do not come planning to drink only: Time Out's tip is to "go to Little Bat Bar hungry for cookery as devised by Cochran, as well as thirsty."

What locals & experts say

• Time Out (20 July 2025), Lisa Wright, 4 out of 5 stars: From the team behind Shoreditch's Callooh Callay, Little Bat Bar is a worthy addition to Islington's drinking scene. A cocktail bar that also flaunts a fine line in small plates, their 2025 food menu is the work of one of London's hottest chefs, James Cochran. She also notes wine starting at GBP 7 a glass.1
• The Infatuation (5 January 2022), Heidi Lauth Beasley: old books lining the shelves, little leather stools, an aura of casual debauchery that can quite quickly descend into actual debauchery thanks to their signature rum punch. The guide leaves it unrated because it only scores places where you can eat a full meal.2
• Restaurant, trade press (15 April 2025), James McAllister: Cochran has created the new food menu alongside a refreshed wine and cocktail list, with the chef's signature crisp buttermilk fried chicken with jerk spiced hot honey glaze leading the starters.3
• Foodism (31 August 2018), Lydia Winter, on the brunch list a chef would clock: the Avorita, a smoky, moreish drink with Derrumbes Zacatecas mezcal, avocado and coriander, the glass rimmed with flakes of salt. Those are 2018 drinks and the list has turned over since.7
• No industry pick found. All 621 rows of London's chef-vote file were checked on 30 July 2026 and nobody in the trade names this bar. The rung reflects that.

Good to know

• Where: 54 Islington Park Street N1 1PX, five minutes from Highbury & Islington.
• Timing: closed Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday 5pm to midnight, Thursday and Friday 5pm to 1am, Saturday 11am to 1am, Sunday 11am to midnight. Brunch runs 11am to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday (Time Out listing).
• Booking: tables are bookable through the venue site and worth taking now that the food matters. Walk-ins go to the front stools.
• Price: wine from GBP 7 a glass in July 2025; Time Out prices the bar 3 of 4.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 3, generally satisfactory, from an Islington inspection on 8 January 2025, with component scores of 5 for hygiene, 10 for structure and 10 for confidence in management (record).
• Dietary: the venue publishes no allergen or dietary statement, so nothing is flagged here. Ask when you book.
• Sites: Richard Wynne runs three rooms. Callooh Callay at 65 Rivington Street in Shoreditch is the original, The March Hare on the King's Road in Chelsea opened in April 2026 in place of Callooh Callay Chelsea, and this is the Islington one. Reviews of the Shoreditch bar are about that address, not this one.

Verdict

could-visit — Go if you are in Islington, and go hungry. Richard Wynne opened this in March 2016 as the second site to Callooh Callay, and for nine years it was a well-run neighborhood cocktail room with old books and leather stools. In April 2025 he handed the food to James Cochran, who came through The Ledbury and The Harwood Arms and ran 12:51, and whose buttermilk fried chicken under jerk-spiced hot honey is the dish he has carried across every kitchen he has run. Time Out gave it four stars and told readers to arrive hungry. The drinks are good and priced for a neighborhood, with wine from GBP 7 a glass and a clarified four-whisky Devil's Water on the list. What keeps it off the detour rung is that no working bartender or chef has been found sending anyone here, and the cocktail programme has no published cycle, so the craft case rests on a kitchen that arrived last year.