London's hotel bars, matched to the night you want.
London’s hotel bars promise many versions of an evening: exacting cocktails, easy grandeur, warm service, a room with momentum, or simply a better coffee drink. Our visits run across Covent Garden, Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Park Lane, the Strand, Holborn, and Whitehall.
London Skyline from London Bridge at dusk by Donnchadh H · CC BY 2.0 · Resized and cropped to fit
One makes the cocktail the main event. The other lets the room carry the night.
A classic room and exacting cocktails make craft, rather than history alone, the main event. Across this crawl, no drinks program made a stronger case.
Read The Connaught Bar profile
Spacious and lively, yet capable of making the right seat feel private, Scarfes brings travelers and locals into a room with genuine momentum.
Read Scarfes Bar profileThe useful question is not which address carries the grandest name. It is which room and drink make sense tonight.
Stops where the coffee order reveals the bar’s strongest idea.
Rooms where hospitality or a sense of belonging mattered more than flawless décor.
Rooms with lower light and different relationships to energy later in the evening.
History creates expectation. These visits made the gap between pedigree and personality part of the verdict.
Browse alphabetically, or find a room in your part of the city.
The Savoy
American Bar pairs exceptional hospitality and live music with a room that shows its age. The welcome is the reason to go.
Read the profile
45 Park Lane
BAR 45 has the bones of a fun later night stop, but its clearest reason to visit is a Negroni that gives the room real purpose.
Read the profile
Claridge's
Claridge’s Bar is unmistakably a classic London hotel bar, but its history never quite becomes the distinctive character the name leads you to expect.
Read the profile
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London
Beyond the grand lobby, Mandarin Bar changes the mood. Low sofas, dim lighting and confidently made classics give this Knightsbridge room the feel of a private lounge.
Read the profile
The Ritz London
The Iron Lady gives Rivoli Bar a reason to visit, but the dated room and limited atmosphere fall short of the Ritz's grandeur.
Read the profile Rosewood London
A favorite London bar room, where live music, fireplace corners and assured cocktails make grandeur feel approachable.
Read the profile
NoMad London
Side Hustle brings a Latin American point of view to a room that layers modern London energy over a historic setting. The Carajillo is the coffee order to remember.
Read the profile The Connaught
The Connaught Bar deserves the reputation that precedes it: a classic room and exacting cocktails that make the craft, rather than history alone, the main event.
Read the profile
Brown's Hotel
The Donovan Bar feels less like a room inside Brown’s Hotel than a confident local bar, comfortable in its own identity and built to age well.
Read the profile
Raffles London at The OWO
Wood paneling, red leather and a view of Horse Guards give The Guards its London character. Friendly bartenders and a very good espresso martini make it easy to settle in.
Read the profile
The Dorchester
Vesper Bar offers plush comfort and kind service, but it leaves too much of The Dorchester’s most exciting energy behind in the lobby.
Read the profileTry a different name or explore every profile.
This guide draws on the Miles for Martinis London visits. Judgments about rooms, hospitality, and drinks come from those visits.
We have organized the bars by the kind of night they suited rather than by numerical rank. Menus and service change; every profile separates the experience we had from practical details checked later.
