Saunter Drink
Cocktail bars, hotel bars and wine rooms in London and Los Angeles.
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Elsewhere · San SebastiánHow to drink your way round the pintxo bars of San Sebastián
The Basque bar crawl explained: one pintxo, one small drink, then on to the next counter.
Opinion · LondonThe best room in a London hotel has no bed
From the Eagle Bar at The Chancery Rosewood to Hawksmoor's Martini Bar at St Pancras, the hotel bar is still where London drinks best.
Lists · London17 new London bars, and the ideas they are built around
Spirits aged in Cretan clay, a counter cut from a fallen elm, a single beer on draught and a wine and vinyl room off Portobello Road.
Lady of the Grapes · London Bridge · June 2026Lady of the Grapes moves into a chocolate factory, and puts the winemaker on the label
Carole Bryon's bar for women winemakers takes over a Victorian corner of Southwark Street, with a Comté soufflé upstairs and a vaulted speakeasy below.
Sova · Notting Hill · April 2026Sova pours Georgian amber and Ukrainian fizz, with records from Rough Trade on the shelf
Zima's old Notting Hill site becomes a wine and vinyl bar off Portobello Road, with Cristian Vega's eastern list and Denis Calmis's tartare on rye.
Pepperbird · Olympia · 2 April 2026Pepperbird Is a Speakeasy Built Where Hendrix Once Played Olympia
Des Gunewardena's basement bar under Pillar Hall trades in velvet, amber light and cocktails named after records.
Cato · Covent Garden · 5 February 2026Cato swaps Crazy Bear's red leather for a julep room and a basement sorted by colour
Angelos Bafas and Bart & Taylor honour New York's first celebrity bartender on Mercer Street, with mint upstairs and British synaesthesia below.
Gambit Bar · Fitzrovia · February 2026Gambit Bar gives the sober guest a full page and the dandies a basement
Under The Newman in Fitzrovia, Eder Neto pours rum, rye and picante beneath an amber ceiling, with a mirror-image alcohol-free list and jazz at the back.
Stable Wines · Islington · 1 December 2025Stable Wines hides a candlelit bar in an Islington bank vault
A natural-wine shop on Essex Road with a labyrinth of arches and iron railings below.
The Martini Bar · King's Cross · November 2025The Martini Bar: Hawksmoor's very cold answer to a Gothic cathedral at St Pancras
In the old Gothic Bar of the Midland Grand, Hawksmoor pours martinis under Gilbert Scott's vaults and serves caviar with hash browns.
The Marlborough · Mayfair · 10 November 2025The Marlborough pours a Devonshire-grade Guinness upstairs and sends you down for a square of pizza
Carl McCluskey's Crisp Pizza has moved from Hammersmith into a restored 1892 Mayfair pub, with the Devonshire team behind the bar.
First Look · LondonAt Kamara in Soho, the spirits rest in Cretan clay
The Brother Marcus founders and bartender Angelos Bafas take the old Blind Pig on Poland Street, pouring tsipouro, mastiha and a tsoureki Old Fashioned.
Eagle Bar · Mayfair · September 2025Eagle Bar shakes a layered B-52 beneath the gilded bird that watched over the old US Embassy
Liana Oster runs two rooftop bars at The Chancery Rosewood: a piano-and-fire-pit American bar facing Grosvenor Square and a Hyde Park terrace for sunset.
Luna · Shad Thames · July 2025Luna gives Shad Thames the wine bar it was missing
Jay Patel and Matt Beardmore of Legare open a candlelit wine bar, bottle shop and restaurant across the cobbles.
Parasol · Dalston · May 2025Parasol turns the old Nest nightclub into a bar where you can sit down and still hear the disco
Andy Kerr of Discount Suit Company and Tom Gibson of Ruby's put booths, reclaimed malting tiles and early-1980s New York records under the Red Hand.
Waltz · Shoreditch · Spring 2025Waltz: the Shoreditch bar built around one fallen tree and a very calm bartender
Gento Torigata, late of Kwant, pours Japanese-style cocktails over a bar slab cut from a tree from Gibson Square.
CINCO · Dalston · March 2025CINCO is a Dalston basement where Mexican whisky and gin finally get the stage
Corrochio's moves its drinking downstairs: a candlelit cellar, an embroidered passport menu and its own pineapple mezcal.
Godet · Islington · October 2024Godet turns an Islington boozer into a wine pub with decks
A French slang word for a glass, a Hackney wine-bar owner and a hi-fi corner that comes alive after dark.
Below Stone Nest · Chinatown · October 2024Below Stone Nest serves frozen White Russians in a room that has outlasted a chapel, a nightclub and a Walkabout
Jackson and Frank Boxer's walk-in basement off Shaftesbury Avenue has had a Jermaine Gallacher refit, a highball list and, at last, a proper bar menu.