London’s Best Speakeasy Bars
Whether you’re looking for a new bar to discover, the perfect date night destination or want to scour to find London’s best speakeasy bars, we’ve rounded up the city’s best-kept secrets. From late-night drinking dens to Champagne bars, bars with flamboyant interiors to cocktail havens, read on to find out more.
Seed Library
Hidden beneath One Hundred Shoreditch, Seed Library is Mr Lyan’s low-lit neighbourhood cocktail bar, where the drinks are deliberately stripped back and the music is taken just as seriously.
The interiors lean into warm woods, low lighting and a distinctly analogue feel, while the cocktail list focuses on familiar flavours presented in unexpected ways. On Friday and Saturday nights, Diggers Dozen takes over the decks with vinyl-only DJ sets, making this one to settle into rather than simply stop by for a drink.
One Hundred Shoreditch Hotel, 100 Shoreditch High Street, Shoreditch, E1 6JQ
www.seedlibraryshoreditch.com
I’ve never had a bad drink at Seed Library. I was once served a drink made with sheep’s intestine. As revolting as that sounds, it was genuinely delicious. They’re constantly experimenting with unexpected ingredients and techniques, but never at the expense of flavour.
Caitlin, Senior Campaign Success Manager
The Bloomsbury Club Bar
The Bloomsbury Club Bar takes its inspiration from the writers, artists and intellectuals of the Bloomsbury Set, who once lived and worked in the surrounding streets.
Hidden beneath The Bloomsbury hotel, the bar pairs dark, intimate interiors with a leafy outdoor terrace and a cocktail menu built around storytelling and mysticism. It’s atmospheric without feeling overly themed and particularly good for a quiet date-night drink in central London.
16 – 22 Great Russell Street, WC1B 3NN
www.thebloomsburyclub.com
Fitz’s Bar
It’s hard to miss the giant disco ball once you’ve found Fitz’s, but getting there still feels like discovering one of Bloomsbury’s more glamorous secrets.
Set inside Kimpton Fitzroy London, the bar is all ostrich feathers, plush seating and maximalist detail beneath that enormous mirrorball. Its current SPECTRUM cocktail menu takes inspiration from synaesthesia, with 12 drinks representing different colours and sensory experiences.
Kimpton Fitzroy London, Russell Square, London WC1B 5BE
www.fitzs.co.uk
I kind of stumbled across this place, but it’s become a real hidden gem, and somewhere I always suggest to people visiting London. Think a prohibition-style speakeasy with ostentatious interiors – ostrich feathers and velvet everywhere.
Astrid, Contributing Fashion & Lifestyle Editor
Barts
Hidden inside the Chelsea Cloisters apartment block, Barts has been playing the speakeasy game since long before secret bars became ubiquitous in London.
Find the anonymous black door, ring the bell and, if all goes to plan, you’ll be ushered into a riot of mismatched furniture, vintage paraphernalia and Prohibition-era references. Cocktails are playful, the atmosphere gets progressively livelier as the night goes on and DJs take over for Speakeasy Sundowns from Thursday to Saturday.
Chelsea Cloisters, Sloane Avenue, SW3 3DW
www.barts-london.com
Blind Spot
Hidden behind a secret entrance inside St Martins Lane London, Blind Spot is one of those bars you could easily walk straight past without realising it was there.
Behind the concealed doors you’ll find a low-lit cocktail lounge with a drinks list influenced by flavours and ingredients from around the world. Its central location makes it particularly handy when you want somewhere that feels hidden without travelling far from the West End.
45 St Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4HX
www.sbe.com
The Champagne Bar at 116 Pall Mall
Beneath the grand Grade I-listed 116 Pall Mall lies a rather unexpected drinking spot.
Searcys’ Champagne Bar occupies the building’s former wine cellars, once used by the Prince of Wales and United Service Club, with vaulted brick ceilings and original iron cellar doors still forming part of the space. As you’d expect, Champagne takes centre stage, joined by wines and cocktails.
The bar currently opens Monday to Friday, so save this one for an after-work drink rather than a Saturday night.
116 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5ED
www.116pallmall.com
Esmeralda’s Mayfair
Mayfair isn’t exactly known for keeping things understated, but Esmeralda’s manages to hide itself away beneath the neighbourhood’s streets.
The basement cocktail lounge pairs plush interiors with cocktails, late-night music and regular live performances. It’s less traditional Prohibition speakeasy and more decadent hidden Mayfair drinking den, but if you’re after somewhere to dress up and stay late, it earns its place.
22 Hanover Square, London, W1S 1JP
www.esmeraldasmayfair.com
Nightjar
One of the names that helped put London’s modern speakeasy scene on the map, Nightjar has been pouring cocktails from its hidden Shoreditch basement since 2010.
Descend beneath an unassuming doorway on City Road and you’ll find a candlelit room inspired by the drinking dens of the Prohibition era, with live jazz and blues accompanying an inventive cocktail list. Drinks are famously elaborate, but it’s the combination of serious bartending and nightly live music that has made Nightjar a London institution.
Shoreditch
www.barnightjar.com
Oriole
Oriole has had several lives in London, but its current incarnation brings the much-loved cocktail and live-music bar to Covent Garden.
The experience is built equally around what’s in your glass and what’s happening on stage, with live jazz, swing and world music accompanying an ambitious cocktail programme and food menu. It’s more polished live-music bar than password-protected speakeasy, but retains the escapist quality that made the original such a favourite.
East Poultry Avenue, Smithfield Markets, EC1A 9LH
www.oriolebar.com
Cahoots
Few London bars commit to the speakeasy theme quite like Cahoots. The 1940s-inspired network now spans three spaces, each imagining a different corner of post-war London and serving cocktails alongside live swing, jazz and late-night entertainment.
The original Underground in Soho is the most immersive, hidden inside a disused-station-inspired space complete with a life-size Tube carriage and Northbound and Southbound platforms. Upstairs, Ticket Hall takes the form of a lively 1940s pub, while over in Borough Yards, Postal Office hides behind an old-fashioned shopfront and sends cocktails flying overhead through an air-powered pneumatic tube system. For the full secret-bar experience, head Underground.
5 Kingly Street, Carnaby, W1B 5PF
www.cahoots-london.com
If you’re looking for a speakeasy with a distinctly British feel, Cahoots is the spot to book. The abandoned tube station houses a fun, quirky bar that makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.
Natasha, Digital Editor
Discount Suit Company
Hidden behind an unmarked black door on Wentworth Street, Discount Suit Company is one of those bars you could walk straight past without knowing it was there. Head down the narrow staircase and behind a heavy curtain to find a tiny basement cocktail bar occupying the former storeroom of the suit company that once traded above it.
The original bones of the space have been kept deliberately simple, with exposed brick, low rafters and a bar fashioned from an old cutting table nodding to its tailoring past. The focus is on classically inspired cocktails and forgotten recipes, backed by Northern Soul and vintage rock ’n’ roll. It’s intimate, unfussy and feels genuinely hidden – exactly what you want from a speakeasy.
29A Wentworth Street, E1 7TB
www.discountsuitcompany.co.uk
Callooh Callay
Named after a line in Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, Callooh Callay has been part of Shoreditch’s cocktail scene since 2008.
Its eccentric interiors, hidden spaces and playful approach to drinks helped establish it as one of the area’s best-known cocktail bars. More than 15 years later, it’s still somewhere worth knowing when you want cocktails without the formality of some of London’s more serious drinking dens.
65 Rivington Street, EC2A 3AY
www.calloohcallaybar.com
Opium
Hidden behind an inconspicuous jade door on Gerrard Street, Opium unfolds across three very different drinking spaces inspired by 1920s Shanghai.
There’s the Apothecary Bar, the intimate Peony Bar and the Attic & Academy Bar, each with its own atmosphere and cocktail list. Dim lighting, vintage details and a maze-like layout make the whole place feel removed from the chaos of Chinatown outside, while dim sum provides the necessary late-night accompaniment.
15-16 Gerrard Street, London, W1D 6JE
www.opiumchinatown.com
