Bars & Pubs

Cask & Glass

Hanging baskets of flowers and the kind of pub frontage usually associated with villages in Kent compose a very pretty picture here, especially when incongruously...

Victoria: 39-41 Palace Street, SW1E 5HN

Distance: 0.2 mls

Zander Bar

Sister to the Bank Aldwych restaurant, this cocktail bar was all the rage in the early 1990s. Times have changed but not the long, gleaming zinc counter and service...

Victoria: 45 Buckingham Gate, SW1E 6BS

Distance: 0.2 mls

Tapster (branch of Davy's)

Victoria: 3 Brewers Green, Buckingham Gate, SW1H 0RH

Distance: 0.3 mls

Balls Brothers

Victoria: 50 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1W 0RN

Distance: 0.3 mls

Dukes Hotel

This centenarian hotel was renovated top to bottom in 2007 by hotelier Campbell Gray (he of One Aldwych fame) and designer Mary Fox Linton, transforming its discreet,...

St James's: 35 St James''s Place, SW1A 1NY

Distance: 0.3 mls

Pacha

There's been talk of refurbishing this club by the Victoria bus depot, but nothing looks likely to happen until the new Pacha Terrace (a five-floored members' club...

Victoria: Terminus Place, SW1E 5NE

Distance: 0.3 mls

Albert

The former Blue Coat Boy was rebuilt in ornate Victorian style in the mid-19th century, its parliamentary connections illustrated by the portraits of past PMs up the...

Victoria: 52 Victoria Street, SW1H 0NP

Distance: 0.3 mls

Red Lion

Hidden down a dark and narrow passageway, this traditional pub is an in-the-know location for local workers, and would doubtless excite overseas tourists looking for...

St James's: 23 Crown Passage, off Pall Mall, SW1Y 6PP

Distance: 0.4 mls

Davy's at St James's

St James's: Crown Passage, Pall Mall, SW1Y 6QY

Distance: 0.4 mls

Golden Lion

With its site opposite Christie's, in a district full of gentlemen's clubs, you might expect the Golden Lion to have an exclusive air about it. In fact, the staff at...

St James's: 25 King Street, SW1Y 6QY

Distance: 0.4 mls

Plumbers Arms

Good ales attract a slew of regulars to this unassuming pub in a quiet Victoria street. Quiet, that is, except for one night in 1974 when Lady Lucan burst in to tell...

Victoria: 14 Lower Belgrave Street, SW1W 0LN

Distance: 0.4 mls

Balls Brothers

St James's: 20 St James's Street, SW1A 1ES

Distance: 0.4 mls

Rivoli at The Ritz

The Ritz's landmark bar was refurbished a few years ago, apparently tarted up to something like its 1920s glory. We've not seen photographs of how it looked in its...

St James's: Ritz Hotel, 150 Piccadilly, W1J 9BR

Distance: 0.4 mls

Mahiki

Regular and much-publicised patronage by junior members of the Royal Family means you'll have to queue to get in here, even midweek; though when you're in this Mayfair...

Mayfair: 1 Dover Street, W1S 4LD

Distance: 0.5 mls

Galvin at Windows

There's no more remarkable site for a bar in London than Windows: 28 floors up, at the top of the Park Lane Hilton, with an extraordinary panoramic view of the...

Mayfair: 28th floor, London Hilton, 22 Park Lane, W1K 1BE

Distance: 0.5 mls

Speaker

It's a while since we've heard such compelling bar banter as here, where the Friday lunch barflies - some suited, some in high-visibility vests - kept up an...

Westminster: 46 Great Peter Street, SW1P 2HA

Distance: 0.5 mls

Library

Surprisingly, those books are real. But the whole place is otherwise a fabulous illusion: despite its olde worlde appearance, the Lanesborough was a hospital until the...

Belgravia: Lanesborough Hotel, 1 Lanesborough Place, Hyde Park Corner, SW1X 7TA

Distance: 0.5 mls

1707

Strange that this most traditional of London shops should have decided to import a flavour of the New World: its revamp has created a bar that wouldn't be out of place...

Piccadilly: Fortnum & Mason, 181 Piccadilly, W1J 9FA

Distance: 1.2 mls

Boisdale

From the labyrinthine variety of bar and restaurant spaces to the overstated tartan accents, there's something faintly preposterous about this entire operation. Rest...

Victoria: 13 Eccleston Street, SW1W 9LX

Distance: 0.5 mls

Only Running Footman

There's something gracious about many Mayfair pubs: disinclined to lay on satellite sport and all-night happy hours, the best retain an old-world charm. This is one...

Mayfair: 5 Charles Street, W1J 5DF

Distance: 0.6 mls

Cinnamon Club

Divided between an upscale Indian restaurant, a buzzy DJ basement and sedate, study-like cocktail bar by the main entrance, this former local library has a...

Westminster: The Old Westminster Library, 30-32 Great Smith Street, SW1P 3BU

Distance: 0.6 mls

Donovan Bar

To get to the Donovan, you have to pass through an anonymous, standard-issue hotel bar, with acres of grey carpet and a pianist tinkling away in a corner. But don't...

Mayfair: Brown's Hotel, 33-34 Albemarle Street, W1S 4BP

Distance: 0.6 mls

5th View

There are few more indulgent pleasures than whiling away a couple of hours in a pub with a good book. But what about drinking in a bookshop? Set on the fifth floor of...

St James's: 5th floor, Waterstone's, 203-206 Piccadilly, W1J 9HA

Distance: 0.6 mls

Ebury Wine Bar & Restaurant

Not to be confused with the Ebury gastropub in nearby Pimlico, this slick, continental-style place has charms aplenty. Chief among these is the well-made dishes – a...

Victoria: 139 Ebury Street, SW1W 9QU

Distance: 0.6 mls

ICA Bar

Having paid the £2 day membership fee (and thus skirting a local law concerning alcohol sales and nearby Buckingham Palace), walk through the ICA gallery to what at...

Trafalgar Square: The Mall, SW1Y 5AH

Distance: 0.6 mls

Mulligan's of Mayfair (branch of Balls Brothers)

Mayfair: 14 Cork Street, W1S 3NS

Distance: 0.6 mls

Blue Bar

The crowd at this sleb-favoured hotel haunt is very see-and-be-seen, but it's nice to see the staff don't greet them with the complacency they probably deserve. This...

Knightsbridge: The Berkeley, Wilton Place, SW1X 7RL

Distance: 0.6 mls

The Bar at The Dorchester

To crown its recent refurbishment programme, The Dorchester has put the redesign of its landmark bar in the hands of Thierry Despont, a New York-based French architect...

Mayfair: 53 Park Lane, W1K 1QA

Distance: 0.6 mls

Star Tavern

During the '50s and '60s, this mews pub is said to have drawn a mix of the very high and the very low: on the one hand, the moneyed Belgravians who've long dominated...

Belgravia: 6 Belgrave Mews West, SW1X 8HT

Distance: 0.6 mls