Silk Stockings Cocktail Bar
Three different operations have run this room on Dalston Lane since 2015, so any review you read about it needs a date checked before you trust it (Time Out).
Why go
It opened in October 2015 as a sister bar to Satan's Whiskers, and Time Out's editors recorded that it re-opened under new management
1 in March 2018 without saying who. Then in November 2025 Bar Magazine reported that Callooh Callay's founder Richard Wynne and his team had taken the bar over, through December, with the following year still undecided (Bar Magazine).
Whether that arrangement survived into 2026 is genuinely unclear. The bar's own website does not mention Callooh Callay anywhere. What is certain is that the place was trading in July 2026, when it ran a month of cocktails built on Ron Santiago de Cuba: a Cuban Breeze, a Mandarin Daiquiri and a Santiago Orchard on the 11-year Añejo (The Upcoming).
The room is small, dark and boothed, with a hip-hop soundtrack and a full-size pool table at the back. Food goes from oysters to fried chicken. The venue calls its own approach "ice-cold martinis, zippy margaritas, and slow-stirred classics", which is the bar describing itself rather than anyone else's assessment.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the martini, which is what the bar puts first, and whatever single-spirit guest list is running that month. If you arrive before eight, the two-for-one on house cocktails is the reason to be there.
- Avoid: turning up with a decade-old review in your head. The kitchen and the bar have both changed hands twice since anyone wrote about it.
What locals & experts say
- Lottie Coltman, Time Out London, November 2015, 3 out of 5:
the drinks failed to stand out. Even a rendition of the cocktail that gives the bar its name, a mellow mix of tequila, cacao cream, grenadine and chocolate, lacked conviction and depth.
Read that as history. Time Out's own editors appended a note in March 2018 that the bar had reopened under new management.1 - Richard Wynne, founder of Callooh Callay, November 2025:
Silk Stockings has always had an air of mystery and mischief. We're keeping that spirit alive, pouring the sort of drinks that make you feel like you've found somewhere you shouldn't tell your friends about.
Bar Magazine called it a cameo, with the team running the venue through December.2 - No industry vote. Nobody in our London chef and bartender vote file names Silk Stockings, and no ranked cocktail-bar placement could be established for it either way.
Good to know
- Where: 80 Dalston Lane E8 3AH, a short walk from Dalston Junction Overground.
- Timing: evenings and late. Check the venue for the current days, since its own site and its listings disagree.
- Happy hour: two for one on all house cocktails from 5pm to 8pm. The venue says every day; its listing says Tuesday to Sunday.
- The pool table is full size and it is at the back, which shapes the room more than the taxidermy ever did.
- Food: oysters at one end, fried chicken at the other.
- Hygiene: the FSA holds this premises as registered with Hackney and awaiting inspection, with no rating ever issued and all three component scores blank. FHRSID 1432161.
- Who runs it: unconfirmed. Callooh Callay's team was announced for November and December 2025 and the venue's own site is silent on the subject.
- Sites: one. Callooh Callay in Shoreditch is a separate business, and its reputation belongs to that address.
Verdict
could-visit — Go if you are in Dalston, and do not build an evening around it. Silk Stockings is a small, low-lit room on Dalston Lane with leather booths, a hip-hop soundtrack, a full-size pool table and food that runs from oysters to fried chicken. In November 2025 Callooh Callay's founder Richard Wynne put his team behind the bar, which is the strongest thing anyone can currently say about what they pour here, and Bar Magazine framed it as a cameo through December with 2026 undecided. Nobody has reviewed the drinks since. The one bylined verdict on this address is Lottie Coltman's three stars from November 2015, written about a Satan's Whiskers sister bar that has changed hands twice since, and it says the drinks 'lacked conviction and depth'. Set against that, there is a two-for-one on all house cocktails from five in the evening, which is the honest reason to walk in.