Lady’s Guide to the Best London Cocktail Bars

Today I want to share my guide to some of the best London cocktail bars. From famous names to hidden spots, there are great places for drinks in the UK capital.

London Cocktail Bars

A few weeks ago the UK celebrated London Cocktail Week. Unfortunately, the festivities overlapped with the London Restaurant Festival (why they happen concurrently is beyond me).

I was so busy with events for the restaurant festival that I didn’t get a chance to attend any Cocktail Week parties. Thankfully, I’ve since been able to visit several London cocktail bars to atone for my sins of omission.

Egerton House Hotel Bar

My London cocktail crawl started off with a meeting at the Egerton House Hotel bar in Knightsbridge. There I met a few other bloggers for drinks at the invitation of the hotel’s content and community manager.

After we settled into some sofas in the intimate lounge we were greeted by the seasoned barman, who came to the table to make us martinis.

He was a pro, and his drinks were scandalously strong. I could only manage one before switching to champagne, but one was enough to make me want to go back.

The Booking Office Bar

In the meantime, I continued my tour of London cocktail bars at another establishment a few nights later. This one was The Booking Office bar at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in King’s Cross.

I’d been dying to visit George Gilbert Scott’s fabulously romantic Gothic Revival building since it reopened as a five-star accommodation, and I managed to wrangle a tour of the spa and some of the suites before cocktail hour.

During the show-round I saw some impressive interiors, including the stunning staircase and areas where scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

In addition, I saw both the first revolving door in Europe and the first public smoking area for women in Europe.

Beyond those, the hotel featured suites with replica wallpaper that cost 48,000 pounds to create and another 12,000 pounds to hang. It was all so overwhelming that I needed a drink.

That came in the form of a cocktail (or two) that The Booking Office bar offered me and a friend. The bar was as stunning as the rest of the hotel, and featured the Grade I-listed original ticket booth from the St Pancras train station.

To fit in with its surroundings, the drinks menu featured Victorian British cocktails and punches in copper bowls.

As we settled into low-slung chairs, my friend ordered a cup of Billy Dawson’s Punch, which was made with lemon juice, sugar, Jamaican rum, VSOP cognac, and Batavia Arrack.

I had an Orchard Sour, which contained apple gin, elderflower liqueur, apple juice, fresh lime, sugar syrup, and egg white. While her cocktail was rich, spicy, and perfect for autumn, mine was a light spring day.

We enjoyed our first round with some bar snacks. Everything from truffle fries to cheese sticks, mini bagels with smoked salmon, and fish croquettes filled the table as we sipped.

The food was enough to carry us to a second round of drinks at the famous travel-themed bar in London.

My friend ordered The Bacardi Cocktail, which was made with rum, lime juice, and grenadine. I went for a Cosmopolitan Daisy, a blend of gin, Orange Curacao, lemon juice, and raspberry syrup.

Both cocktails were pink and girly, and we sipped them happily as the bar buzzed around us.

Best London Cocktail Bars

My tour of London cocktail bars ended there, but I’m sure it won’t be long before I go on another.

From the Experimental Cocktail Club, which is hidden away up a narrow staircase in Chinatown, to 69 Colebrooke Row, the bar without a name in Angel, there are plenty of cocktail bars in London to visit next time I fancy a tipple.

I just hope my craving doesn’t coincide with ten different London food festivals.

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