The best cocktails in London
21 places
A Bar with Shapes for a Name
£££Built on Bauhaus principles down to the glassware, with a menu of about a dozen drinks and nothing surplus to it.
Artesian
££££Four consecutive years as the best bar in the world in the 2010s, and still a room built for a long drink rather than a quick one.
Bar Termini
£££Twenty-odd seats, negronis aged in the bottle, and an espresso counter by day - closer to Rome than to Soho.
Coupette
£££Calvados and apple run through the whole menu - a bar with a thesis rather than a list.
Dukes Bar
££££The martini is made at your table from frozen bottles and there is a two-drink limit, which tells you most of what you need to know.
A strict limit of two martinis per guest. It is not a suggestion.
Happiness Forgets
£££Low ceilings, low light and a short menu under Hoxton Square - one of the rooms that started London's basement bar habit.
Isabel
££££A Beaux-Arts dining room off Albemarle Street, with a bar downstairs that runs late.
Named by two sources for the look rather than the cooking.
Kwãnt
££££Erik Lorincz, formerly of the Savoy's American Bar, running a basement room under Shepherd Market.
Lyaness
££££Ryan Chetiyawardana builds the menu around a handful of house-made ingredients and rewrites it wholesale - a river view attached.
Nightjar
£££Live jazz and blues every night in a basement off Old Street, with drinks built to match the era rather than the trend.
Live music nightly, with a music charge after a certain hour. Book.
NoMad London
££££A three-storey glass atrium filled with plants, inside the former Bow Street Magistrates Court opposite the Royal Opera House.
The building is the draw - a working courthouse until 2006.
Oriole
££££A basement off Smithfield market with live music nightly and a menu organised by continent - the sibling to Nightjar.
Satan's Whiskers
£££No bookings, taxidermy on the walls, hip-hop loud enough to talk over, and a menu rewritten daily - named the best cocktail bar in London and third in the UK.
Walk-in only, and it fills early. The menu changes every day.
Scarfes Bar
££££Gerald Scarfe's caricatures cover the walls, there is a fire and a live band most nights, and it feels like a library that started serving drinks.
Seed Library
£££Ryan Chetiyawardana again, in a stripped concrete basement doing short, low-alcohol drinks with none of the ceremony.
Sucre
£££A Soho basement lit by cut-glass chandeliers, over an open fire kitchen.
One source calls it impressive but just subdued enough not to feel gimmicky, which is the distinction this whole list turns on.
Swift
£££Quick drinks upstairs, a dark room and a long whisky list downstairs - built so you can use it either way.
Tayēr + Elementary
££££Alex Kratena and Monica Berg split it in two - a standing bar at the front, a seated tasting room behind - and it reached fourth in the world.
The American Bar
££££Trading since the 1890s and the room where the Savoy Cocktail Book was written - a pianist, white jackets, and no concession to fashion.
The Connaught Bar
££££The martini is mixed at your table from a trolley of tinctures and you choose as it goes - twice voted the best bar in the world, and on the list more times than any other bar ever.
Three Sheets
£££Two brothers, a short menu and no theatre - the drinks arrive without a speech, which in this scene is the point.