The Royal Cocktail Exchange
The house Margarita is built on a mixto they blend themselves, tequila cut with high-proof rum, because the owners decided it makes a better drink than the standard build does.
Why go
Elliot Ball, Andy Mil and Olly Brading opened Cocktail Trading Co in Shoreditch and Murder Inc in Soho, and took the three-floor former Bao site on Windmill Street in October 2023 (CLASS). Ball's own framing of what is different: It's the first time we've really invested in the aesthetic of our bars. A lot of what we've done in the past has been charmingly rough and ready.
The reason to come is the thesis on the list. They sat down and re-tasted the canon, and they will tell you exactly what they think is wrong with it. Half the menu is classics rebuilt on those objections and half is what Ball calls outrageous, bastardised interpretations
. The house work is where you can check the claim: cacao husk vermouth and yellow mustard miso in a Dry Aged Manhattan, kombu bourbon in the Newport Sour with a Welsh cake baked in-house on the side, a coconut-ginger oleo and gunpowder tea in the Gangsta's Paradise (The Spirits Business). Downstairs is a development bar under charred oak; the top floor runs the masterclasses they have been teaching for a decade.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the house Margarita, for the mixto. The Dry Aged Manhattan. The Newport Sour if it is still on, and eat the Welsh cake. Samosas with the butter-chicken mayo.
- Avoid: Sundays, when it is shut, and booking without leaving a note if you want longer than ninety minutes, which is what the system hands out by default.
What locals & experts say
- Elliot Ball, co-owner, to CLASS, October 2023, on why the list exists:
The main menu will see us sit down and taste classics like people do with wine. So many classics are weird and unfinished when you really evaluate them as if they were new... the Negroni is wildly unbalanced, the Old Fashioned has a lot of sweetness with no acidity to balance (though salt helps), the Manhattan is typically too thin on the mid-palate.
That is the owner talking about his own bar, so it is a statement of intent.1 - Andy Mil, co-owner, in the same piece, on the two rooms:
The ground floor reflects the physical journey, the materials and finishes being those used historically in the transportation and storage of liquor. The lower ground is more about the journey of what's inside the bottles: alligator char cladding, botanical colours and textures inspired by herbs, all under good, timeless candlelight.
1 - Shekha Vyas, Tasting Britain, 7 October 2024, the only independent verdict findable:
The cocktail menu is both adventurous and ambitious, with a strong focus on rum-based creations and fresh fruit infusions.
Her piece also places the bar inLondon's financial district
, which is four miles wrong, so it is worth what a geography error makes it worth.6 - No award, and that is checked rather than assumed. The UK Top 50 Cocktail Bars, Difford's Guide, London Cocktail Week and DesignMyNight pages for this venue all returned nothing on 1 August 2026, and no bartender in London's 622-pick industry corpus names it. The owners' other bars have a record; this address does not yet.
Good to know
- Where: 31 Windmill Street, W1T 2JN, on the corner of Whitfield Street. Goodge Street is the station.
- Timing: Monday to Thursday 4pm to 11.30pm, Friday to midnight, Saturday from 2pm to midnight, closed Sunday.
- Booking: the system gives you ninety minutes unless you ask for longer in the notes. The bar takes card details for six or more, and the no-show charge per head is pegged to the price of a pint of Guinness, which it puts at GBP 7.
- Price: every cocktail GBP 12.50. Two samosas and a dip GBP 8.50.
- The floors: glass-fronted room for 40 at street level, a darker basement bar under charred oak, and a prep and teaching floor above. Sources differ on whether the basement holds 40 or 50.
- Operator: the premises licence is held by Twenty-First Amendment Ltd, Camden, reference PREM-LIC/2256.
- Hygiene: no FSA registration exists at this address, while other Windmill Street premises are registered. That is a missing record rather than a poor rating, and it is worth an enquiry to Camden.
- Michelin: none, and a cocktail bar sits outside the guide's scope.
Verdict
should-visit — Elliot Ball, Andy Mil and Olly Brading built Cocktail Trading Co and Murder Inc, and this is the first room they say they spent real money on. What makes it worth crossing town for is the argument behind the list rather than the fit-out. Ball to CLASS: 'So many classics are weird and unfinished when you really evaluate them as if they were new... the Negroni is wildly unbalanced, the Old Fashioned has a lot of sweetness with no acidity to balance, the Manhattan is typically too thin on the mid-palate.' The house Margarita is built on their own mixto, a blend of tequila and high-proof rum, because they think it makes a better drink. A Manhattan comes with cacao husk vermouth and yellow mustard miso. A sour arrives with a Welsh cake they baked. There is a development bar on its own floor and a masterclass business they have run for a decade on another, and they launched a full new menu inside a year. Every cocktail is GBP 12.50, which for that amount of house work is the value argument made for you. It holds at a detour because everything above is the owners talking or the trade reporting them: no award, no competition result, no bartender vote, and the one independent review in open search puts Fitzrovia in the City.