The London Bar That Will Change Everything You Thought You Knew About Agave

Most bars want to be all things to all people. The Perception Bar at W London has gone the other way. With its new menu, Soho’s Home of Agave, the first-floor bar looking down on the streets of Soho now serves agave spirits and agave spirits only: tequilas, mezcals and agave spirits from Mexico and, more surprisingly, from England, Australia, South Africa and India, home of Maya Pistola Agavepura Reposado, the bottle I’d order first. No gin, no whisky, no vodka soda. (There’s still beer and wine for anyone who insists, but where spirits are concerned, it’s agave or nothing.) It’s one of the most single-minded spirits lists in London, and for the many Americans who pass through its doors, it doubles as a crash course in a spirit they thought they already knew.

Photo Credit: W LondonI say that with love, as an American who has ordered her share of Margaritas on autopilot. To find out what I’d been missing, I sat down with bar manager Keanu Rudden, who, yes, was named after Keanu Reeves, and who walked me through the experience from the first pour to the last. (If you’re going to put your agave education in someone’s hands, a man named for the star of The Matrix feels like the right person to show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.)

The bar launched the menu in September in response to a simple trend: more and more guests were asking for tequila, mezcal and agave cocktails. Rather than simply add a few more, the team leaned all the way in, rebuilding the program around one plant with the aim of curating one of the most extensive collections of agave from around the world in London. “Our ambition is to create Soho’s leading destination for agave discovery, with an ever-growing collection that showcases the diversity and innovation of the category today,” says Pedro Branco, W London’s director of food and beverage.

Photo Credit: W London

A Bar With a Point of View

There’s something refreshing about a bar that knows exactly what it is. Committing to agave alone means every bottle on the shelf has to earn its place, and every drink on the menu has to show the spirit from a slightly different angle. It also means the team behind the bar, led by Rudden, are less order-takers than guides. Tell them what you usually drink, and they’ll find you the agave version of it. Tell them you don’t like tequila, and they’ll take that as a personal challenge (and, in my experience, win).

The menu itself is built to teach without lecturing. It’s organized into four chapters (Reimagined Classics, Agave Exploration, Signature Palomas and Alcohol-Free Favourites), and the Agave Exploration chapter alone holds the Global Exploration bottles, The Agave List, house infusions and tasting flights. Neat pours sit right alongside the cocktails, so you can taste a spirit on its own and then see what happens when it’s mixed. By the end of an evening, words like blanco, reposado and añejo stop being things you nod along to and start being things you have opinions about. That, I suspect, is exactly the idea.

Photo Credit: W London 

Agave From Places You’d Never Expect

The biggest lesson, though, is geographic. Tequila, by law, comes only from Mexico and only from blue Weber agave. But agave grows elsewhere, and a new wave of producers around the world is doing fascinating things with it. The Perception Bar’s Global Exploration list is where you’ll meet them.

The bottle I’d ask for first comes from India. Maya Pistola Agavepura Reposado starts with wild agave grown on the Deccan Plateau and is rested in oak in Goa. It isn’t tequila, and it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s something else entirely, with its own plant, its own terroir and enough in common with a good Mexican reposado to make ordering the two side by side one of the best tastings in London right now. Order it neat.

From there, the list keeps traveling. Winchester Distillery’s Agave Reposado proves that Hampshire, of all places, makes agave spirits now. (I didn’t see that coming either.) Agave Australis brings a rested agave spirit from Australia, and Leonista Karoo flies the flag for South Africa. None of them is a novelty. They sit on the shelf as equals to the Mexican greats, and the bartenders are happy to explain what makes each one distinct, whether it’s the plant, the climate, the cask or the distiller’s point of view. And the list isn’t finished: the bar plans to keep adding expressions from emerging producers around the world, so the next visit may well bring a new country to the map.

Photo Credit: W London

Cocktails With a Passport

The same curiosity runs through the cocktails, which borrow ingredients from kitchens around the world. The star of my night was the Agave Obsidian (£19), and it surprised me for one reason: I’m not a Negroni fan. Never have been. The bar takes Koch Elemental mezcal, infuses it with pandan, the fragrant, faintly vanilla leaf beloved across Southeast Asia, blends it with coconut Campari and Antica Formula, then barrel-ages the whole thing for depth. The pandan and coconut round off the bitterness, the mezcal brings a whisper of smoke, and the result might be the most interesting, and quite possibly the best, Negroni I’ve ever had. It’s exactly the kind of drink that proves the bar’s point: stay loyal to one plant, and the rest of the world can still come to you.

Argentina gets a look in, too. The Chimichurri Royale (£19) fat-washes Enemigo Blanco tequila with chimichurri, shakes it with lime and agave and tops it with a sweet lime foam, turning the Picante into something herbal and savory. Chimichurri in a cocktail sounds like an idea someone had after the second round. In the glass, it gives a drink most of us could order in our sleep an entirely new reason to exist.

The rest of the Reimagined Classics chapter keeps the remixing going. Licence to Chill (£21) is a Martini built on Herradura Blanco, stirred with the bar’s seasonal infused vermouth, a citrus tincture and orange bitters. The Sotol Solstice (£21) is a French 75 riff with sotol, the desert spoon spirit from northern Mexico, lifted with pisco, basil-hibiscus syrup and lime and crowned with Veuve Clicquot. And the Velvet Agave (£19) clarifies Mijenta Blanco, kumquat liqueur, Baileys and lime under a chocolate-banana foam, which makes it dessert in Margarita’s clothing, and I mean that as a compliment.

For a real occasion, there’s La Doña (£85), named for the formidable matriarchs of Mexican culture: Volcán De Mi Tierra X.A., Pedro Ximénez, truffle bitters and a balsamic reduction, finished with Dom Pérignon. It’s the most extravagant drink on the menu, and very possibly in Soho.

Photo Credit: W London

Five Palomas, Depending on Your Mood

Notice what’s missing? There’s no Margarita list. That’s deliberate. The team decided against one because the Margarita is the drink everyone already thinks of as Mexico’s classic, and they wanted to give guests something more interesting to discover. So the Paloma, tequila’s other great highball and the one Mexicans themselves tend to reach for, gets the spotlight instead. It’s the menu’s whole philosophy in one decision: skip the obvious, and show people what they’ve been missing.

It gets five different treatments. Bitters & Bold (£20) layers Volcán Reposado with grapefruit cordial, agave and orange and Angostura bitters. The Ruby Paloma (£18) pairs Ocho Reposado with Maison Ferrand Yuzu and citrus bitters under a grapefruit meringue foam. The Salted Cloud (£19), which I tried and loved, is the clever one: Volcán Blanco with pamplemousse and cranberry, clarified with coconut milk and crowned with a sea salt air, so every sip comes with a breath of the ocean. The Sierra Brava (£19) brings Volcán Blanco and Koch Elemental mezcal together with charred pineapple, grapefruit, achiote-infused agave and lime for something bright and smoky. And the clarified Soho Heatwave (£18), with Ocho Blanco, grapefruit, lime, basil and jalapeño topped with grapefruit soda, is the one for the table that can’t decide between a Picante and a Paloma. Five might sound excessive. After the third, it feels like the correct number.

Photo Credit: W London

Take the Class (the Fun Kind)

If you want the full education, order a flight. There are six Discovery Flights, each with three 25ml pours and palate cleansers, and each one is essentially a lesson in a glass. Mezcal Road Trip moves through smoky, vegetal and savory styles. The Terroir Tour takes tequila from crisp and mineral to rich and barrel-aged, so you can taste what time in oak really does. And Is This Even Tequila? is the graduate course, pulling in lesser-known agave and agave-adjacent spirits with notes of citrus, spice, herbs and gentle smoke. I’d order it with the friend who thinks they already know everything about agave. It’s humbling, in the nicest possible way.

The house infusions extend the lesson, served as 30ml pours with a suggested cocktail for each: Smoked Chilli & Cacao mezcal for a Negroni-style drink, Orange & Vanilla for an Old Fashioned and Lemon Peel & Thyme for a French 75 riff. A rotating seasonal infusion means there’s always something new on the syllabus. There’s food, too, inspired by Central and South America, with six signature tacos (the slow-cooked birria beef and the W Burger Taco among them) and a trio of Cornish crab tostadas, if you need something to soak it all up. But that’s not why you’re here.

Photo Credit: W London

How to Do It

Come early in the evening, when you can still get a seat at the bar. That’s the best place to be, because Rudden and his team are the real teachers here. Start with a cocktail, move on to a flight once you’ve found your bearings, and save the neat pour you’re most curious about for last. If you’re with a group, order different flights and pass them around. And if you’re a tequila skeptic, don’t start with the smokiest mezcal on the list. Start with a Paloma, then a reposado, and let the bartender take it from there.

Photo Credit: W London

My Order

The Agave Obsidian. Full stop. I also tried the Chimichurri Royale and the Salted Cloud, and I’d happily drink either again, but the Obsidian is the one I’ll be thinking about until my next trip to Soho. I walked in thinking I knew agave, and that I didn’t like Negronis. I walked out wrong on both counts.

The Perception Bar at W London, 10 Wardour Street, London W1D 6QF. Open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to midnight and Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.

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