Murder Inc. Cocktails
Difford's Guide reckons this is
the only bar in the world with Death In The Afternoon on tap,absinthe with agave-ginger sherbet and champagne, poured from a draught line1.
Why go
The Cocktail Trading Co team opened this basement on Hanway Street in summer 2019 and gave it the opposite brief to their Shoreditch original. The Nudge got the split from the owners: the drinks here are more stripped-back and simple, pouring all their creative powers into the taste rather than the presentation
8. The venue states the pricing policy in the same flat way: Inexpensive, but not short-poured
(venue). It works out at GBP 6 for a Negroni, Daiquiri or Tommy's before 7pm every day, and most of the list at or under GBP 11 (Difford's). The room holds 60 and is done as gangster noir: red neon, exposed brick, a ceiling of matchbooks and beer mats, boxing memorabilia, a signed Charlie Sheen the owners say needs no explanation. It has held a UK Top 50 Cocktail Bars place three years running, 15th in 2024, 24th in 2025 and 21st in 2026, and the Pinnacle Guide gave it two Pins in September 2025.
Order this / avoid
- Order: Death in the Afternoon off the tap, then the Frozen Banana Ramos, Jagermeister with banana milk, coconut cream, citrus, egg white and stout, which Difford's calls
something of a signature drink for the bar
1. For whisky drinkers, Square Mile sends you to the Rusty Nail in the Coffin, Ardbeg with Drambuie and barbecued marmalade vermouth7. Arrive before 7pm for the GBP 6 Freeloaders. Nachos to eat. - Avoid: planning on a same-day table. The venue takes bookings ahead but stops
for that night once we've opened,
caps them at eight people and at 9pm, and sends walk-up traffic to its sister bar five minutes up the road (venue).
What locals & experts say
- Difford's Guide (15 November 2019), Simon Difford:
the welcome is warm and friendly, the moodily-lit basement space homely and snug (a capacity of just 60), service impeccable, and the drinks killer.
On price:most cocktails are still under a tenner and of a quality worth twice the price.
1 - Square Mile (12 December 2019), Max Williams:
Murder Inc feels a bit like drinking in Hell's Waiting Room. Yes, it's that cool.
And on the approach:Murder Inc takes life light but its drinks seriously.
7 - The Pinnacle Guide, September 2025: two Pins, the band the guide calls
outstanding,
reported by Time Out's Leonie Cooper. Only one other London bar in that round took two.2 - Top 50 Cocktail Bars (UK): 15th in 2024, reported by Catherine Hanly at Hot Dinners in the same week London took a run of Michelin stars3; 24th in 20254; 21st in 20265.
- The Nudge (24 June 2019), Jason Allen, on the design brief the owners gave him:
the kind of basement bar where you can pretty much get away with murder.
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Good to know
- Timing: the only published hours are Difford's from 2019, which recorded 16:30 to midnight Monday to Wednesday, 16:30 to 2am Thursday to Saturday and closed Sunday. Seven years old, so check the Maps listing before a Sunday or an early visit.
- Booking: advance only, maximum eight people, nothing after 9pm, two-hour slots, and card details taken for parties of six or more with a no-show charge the venue prices as
the current price for a pint of Guinness... let's be nice and say GBP 7
(venue). - Where it actually is: a narrow backstreet between the Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road corners. The venue calls itself "just above Soho," the Top 50 lists file it in Soho, and Difford's files it in Fitzrovia. Postcode is W1T 1UP.
- Hygiene: no FSA record exists for this premises under any name, so there is no rating to report in either direction (register).
- Masterclasses: not held here. The venue says it
built a space up the road specifically for classes,
above the Royal Cocktail Exchange (venue). - Sites: the bar on this page is 36 Hanway Street. Group siblings are The Royal Cocktail Exchange (Fitzrovia, five minutes away and the one that takes bookings), The Cocktail Trading Co. (Shoreditch, the original), Her Majesty's Secret Service (Clifton, Bristol) and Filthy XIII (Stokes Croft, Bristol). Reviews of the Cocktail Trading Co do not describe this bar; the group deliberately runs a different drinks style at each.
Craft signals (cocktails: named concept menus, three list placings)
Two signals. The bar ships named concept menus, the current one written as irreverent takes on classics where every drink starts from a dare, which is how the Cocktail Trading Company group has always worked. The second is the peer read: three consecutive UK Top 50 Cocktail Bars placings and two Pinnacle Guide Pins, with Difford's calling the drinks of a quality worth twice the price. Concept-menu cadence plus house production, barbecued marmalade vermouth and buttered nettle cordial, is a programme.
Verdict
should-visit — A 60-seat basement off Oxford Street that has been in the UK Top 50 Cocktail Bars three years running, 15th in 2024, 24th in 2025 and back up to 21st in 2026, and took two Pins from the Pinnacle Guide in September 2025. The pitch is deliberately unfussy: the same team runs the showpiece drinks at the Cocktail Trading Co in Shoreditch and keeps this list stripped back, with Death in the Afternoon poured from a tap and classics at GBP 6 before 7pm. That combination of price and placing is unusual in the West End. It is not a trek because the room is small and dark, the food is nachos, and no critic has assessed it since the year it opened.