The Best New Cocktail Bars In London Right Now

Photo Credit: Addie Chin

London has never exactly suffered from a shortage of places to get a very good drink. But over the past year, the city’s cocktail scene has become particularly interesting. The newest arrivals aren’t simply adding another elaborate drinks list to an already crowded landscape; they’re getting smaller, more specific and, frankly, more fun. There are serious Martinis in Mayfair, Indian ingredients being subjected to some very serious cocktail wizardry, an art-world hideaway that barely announces its existence, and a subterranean Soho temple devoted to agave. These are the best new cocktail bars to have opened in London within the past year—and the ones actually worth drinking at now.

Brutes of Mayfair

Bruton Place, Mayfair

If London has a cocktail of the moment, it is unquestionably the Martini—and Brutes of Mayfair may be its new spiritual home. The tiny Bruton Place bar arrived in 2026 with a wonderfully old-school premise: white-jacketed bartenders, excellent snacks and very cold, very serious drinks in a room that feels more like mid-century Manhattan than modern Mayfair. Time Out promptly awarded it five stars.

The real fun is the Martini service. Drinks can be ordered dry, wet, dirty or, appropriately, “brutal,” accompanied by snacks ranging from gildas and blue-cheese olives to caviar. There’s nothing overwrought about it, which is precisely the point. In an era of 12-ingredient cocktails and increasingly complicated concepts, Brutes understands that sometimes what you really want is a spectacular Martini in a sexy room. Revolutionary? No. Extremely effective? Absolutely.

Tryst

Beneath Trèsind, Mayfair

Hidden beneath Trèsind in Mayfair, Tryst takes a considerably more cerebral approach to cocktail hour. The intimate 30-seat subterranean bar comes from a restaurant whose Dubai original became the world’s first Indian restaurant to hold three Michelin stars, and its drinks program treats India not as a loose theme but as a vast pantry of flavors and techniques.

Former SOMA head bartender Marina Juszczyk has built the menu around ingredients and regions of India, using techniques including milk washing, sous-vide infusion and carbonation. The Bikaner, for example, draws on Rajasthan with kumquat, aamchoor, peppercorn, whisky, cognac and buttermilk. The minimalist stone-and-metal room keeps the bar itself center stage—which is appropriate when this much work is going into what lands in your glass. This is one for people who think they’ve seen every possible iteration of the London cocktail bar. They haven’t.

Tramps Bar

Islington

There’s discreet, and then there’s Tramps. Artist Peter Doig and gallerist Parinaz Mogadassi quietly opened this tiny Islington bar in Doig’s former studio near the Victoria Miro gallery, with little more than a handwritten sign on the door announcing that anything exists inside at all. Naturally, it became one of London’s coolest new places to drink almost immediately.

The space is part gallery, part neighborhood bar and entirely unconcerned with trying too hard. A freestanding vintage bar anchors an otherwise minimal room dotted with contemporary art, while the drinks follow the same philosophy: polished, unfussy and very good. It’s the antithesis of the big-ticket Mayfair cocktail experience—and that is exactly why it belongs on this list. Come for a Martini; stay because half the fun is feeling as though you’ve stumbled into something you weren’t necessarily supposed to find.

Waltz

Shoreditch 

Tiny, Japanese-influenced and intensely focused on seasonality, Waltz represents the other end of London’s new cocktail spectrum. Rather than maximalism, the emphasis here is precision: thoughtful drinks, changing ingredients and the sort of meticulous execution that makes a small bar feel like a destination.

It’s a bartender’s bar in the best possible sense—somewhere the details matter but the experience never feels like a lecture. For anyone more interested in what London’s serious cocktail community is drinking than where everyone is currently being photographed drinking it, Waltz is one to know.

Photo Credit: El Siete

El Siete

Beneath El Pastor Soho

Down a pink staircase beneath El Pastor Soho lies one of London’s best new reasons to drink tequila and mezcal. El Siete opened in March 2026 as Harts Group’s dedicated agave bar, taking inspiration from El Colmillo, the cult Mexico City nightclub opened by El Pastor co-founders Sam Hart and Crispin Somerville in the 1990s.

The formula is pleasingly obsessive: seven Margaritas, seven original agave cocktails and seven agave-led interpretations of classics, alongside a back bar packed with carefully sourced sipping tequilas and mezcals. The room, designed by Macaulay Sinclair, looks toward Mexico City modernism and brutalism, with Barragán pink walls, volcanic stone, terrazzo, chrome and neon. This isn’t Soho doing a vaguely Mexican cocktail bar. It’s a proper love letter to agave culture—and a very good place to lose track of how many Margaritas you’ve had.

Bar Finch 

Cork Street, Mayfair

Charles Finch isn’t attempting to reinvent the bar with Bar Finch. In fact, he explicitly says he isn’t—and in Mayfair, where seemingly every new opening arrives armed with a “concept,” that may be its greatest strength.

Opened on Cork Street in 2026, Finch’s handsome all-day bar takes its cues from the classic bars of Rome and Venice, filtered through his own decidedly international social orbit. Think aperitivo culture, proper cocktails, old-school hospitality and the sort of menu that makes it dangerously easy to turn one drink into dinner.

It is polished without feeling corporate, glamorous without needing to scream about it and conveniently planted amid Mayfair’s galleries. Go for a Martini or aperitivo and stay for steak frites, langoustines or tiramisu. This is less about molecular mixology than mastering the increasingly rare art of being a genuinely great bar.

Georgie’s Bar

Corinthia London

Tom Kerridge has given the Corinthia London a new place to drink with Georgie’s, which debuted in September as part of the reinvention of Kerridge’s at the hotel. Named for Kerridge’s beloved Boxer, Georgie, the bar is intended as the more spontaneous sibling to the restaurant: somewhere equally appropriate for one drink before dinner or the sort of evening where one Martini mysteriously becomes several.

And Martinis are very much part of the plan. The new Martini Club riffs on the classics with signature versions inspired by Kerridge’s penchant for big flavors and indulgence, while the bar pairs its cocktails with the kind of snacks you’d expect from a Michelin-starred chef. London does luxury hotel bars exceptionally well, but Georgie’s feels refreshingly relaxed about being one. Come thirsty; definitely come hungry.

Archive & Myth

Leicester Square

Hidden beneath the Hippodrome Casino, Archive & Myth feels a world away from the bustle above, with intimate seating, richly layered interiors and a cocktail menu that takes its drinks seriously without taking itself too seriously. Its new Second Nature menu reworks familiar serves with unexpected flavors and textures: the Strawb & Cream Negroni brings roasted strawberries and burnt cream to the classic, while the Hawaiian Margarita folds pineapple, tomato and Manchego into a tequila and baijiu base. There are martinis, boozy jellies and even a caviar bump, but the details serve the drinks rather than overwhelm them. Add Old Hong Kong–inspired bites from Chop Chop by Four Seasons, and this is the sort of place worth seeking out for an entire evening, not just one inventive round.

The Bar at GAIA

Dover Street, Mayfair

Mayfair is hardly lacking in places populated by beautiful people drinking beautiful drinks, but The Bar at GAIA understands the assignment particularly well. Located above the London outpost of the glamorous Greek-Mediterranean restaurant, the new standalone bar takes the energy of GAIA and gives it somewhere to continue long after dinner should probably have ended.

This isn’t necessarily the place for cocktail purists wanting to interrogate a bartender about obscure vermouth. It is the place for a beautifully made drink, a dressed-up crowd, music and the unmistakable sense that no one is particularly interested in going home early. Every best-new-bars list needs at least one address where the scene matters almost as much as what’s in the glass. This is it.

Photo Credit: Dante Mayfair/Claridge's

Dante Mayfair

Inside Claridge’s, Mayfair 

New York cocktail institution Dante crossing the Atlantic was always going to get London’s attention; landing at Claridge’s made the pairing almost inevitable. After first arriving at the Mayfair grande dame as a winter residency, Dante brought its distinctly Greenwich Village approach to one of London’s most storied hotels, mixing downtown New York energy with Claridge’s unmistakable polish.

The cocktails are reason enough to come. Dante built much of its reputation on the classics—particularly its Negronis and Martinis—and London gets the same philosophy, with signature Negronis, beautifully executed aperitivo drinks and the kind of Martini that makes ordering a second seem perfectly reasonable. Claridge’s describes the collaboration as bringing the “soul of New York” to Mayfair, and that is essentially the appeal: this isn’t Dante attempting to become an English hotel bar. It’s Dante being Dante, only now you’re drinking it at Claridge’s. For a city already blessed with exceptional hotel bars, that’s enough to make this one of the year’s most notable arrivals.

ROOM86 at MOI

Soho

Soho has plenty of places to drink late. ROOM86 is considerably more interesting than simply being another one of them. Set beneath Japanese-inspired restaurant MOI on Wardour Street, the reimagined space combines cocktails with DJs, selectors, art, fashion and a serious sound system, with an ever-changing program designed so that no two nights necessarily feel the same. Rather than committing itself to one musical genre or crowd, ROOM86 is positioning itself as a constantly evolving slice of London nightlife—exactly the sort of place Soho could use more of.

The drinks retain MOI’s culinary sensibility. Cocktails draw on seasonal and local ingredients while incorporating Japanese techniques and flavors, alongside sake, shochu and a thoughtful selection of low-intervention and biodynamic wines. But ROOM86 isn’t really about sitting reverently at a bar analyzing what is in your glass. It’s about the entire night: the music, the people, the room and a cocktail program good enough to keep up with all three. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. until late, this is the one on the list for when cocktail hour has absolutely no intention of ending.

Plus, One That’s Coming Soon: Venus Bar at Brasserie Olivia

One of Chelsea’s most intriguing new drinking destinations hasn’t actually opened yet—but it will very soon. On October 9, Venus Bar will open beneath the recently debuted Brasserie Olivia just off Sloane Square, bringing a little 1970s Parisian after-hours decadence to Chelsea. The intimate 22-seat basement bar comes from French hospitality group La Nouvelle Garde and takes its name from the Venus Fountain in nearby Sloane Square. Expect warm oak paneling, chartreuse velvet, antique finds sourced from French markets and shelves of vinyl spanning French singers, rock and classical music from the 1940s through the 1980s. Better still, guests will actually be able to choose records for the bar to play.

But it’s the cocktails that make Venus one to watch. The program is overseen by Jennifer Le Nechet and takes a decidedly experimental approach, with techniques including clarification and fat washing. Among the drinks already teased are a cucumber-and-gin milk punch inspired by tzatziki, a Provençal tomato-infused Negroni and the spicy, Mexican-influenced Subway to Venus. Approximately 75 French wines, oysters from Brasserie Olivia’s oyster bar and snacks including gougères round things out. It sounds louche, tiny and very French—which, frankly, is enough to have us counting down to October 9.

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