Bars & Pubs

Elephant & Castle

This corner pub, just off the main Kensington drag of Church Street, has a much lovelier, more clandestine feel than at first suggested by the two sides of opaque...

Kensington: 40 Holland Street, W8 4LT

Distance: 0.5 mls

Drayton Arms

Scuffed leather sofas, faux-Gothic light fittings and dark burgundy walls lend an air of urban trendiness to this traditional corner pub. A correspondingly hip and...

South Kensington: 153 Old Brompton Road, SW5 0LJ

Distance: 0.5 mls

King's Head

Hidden away down an alley a stone's throw from Earl's Court tube, this is a justly popular local. A sleek black-stone exterior hides an equally sleek interior: a...

Earl's Court: 17 Hogarth Place, SW5 0QT

Distance: 0.5 mls

Kensington Arms

Never judge a book by its cover. The pubby exterior of the Kensington Arms, replete with swinging pub sign, gives way to a space more like a café-bar inside, all pale...

Kensington: 41 Abingdon Road, W8 6AH

Distance: 0.5 mls

Anglesea Arms

The 180-year-old Anglesea was Dickens' and DH Lawrence's local (a photo on the wall shows the latter in Selwood Terrace on his wedding day in 1914) and where the Great...

South Kensington: 15 Selwood Terrace, SW7 3QG

Distance: 0.6 mls

Scarsdale

Just as French House (see p69) in Soho was General De Gaulle's haunt, this hostelry was designed to appeal to the officers of Napoleon Bonaparte. These days the...

Kensington: 23A Edwardes Square, W8 6HE

Distance: 0.7 mls

Collection

This fashion-themed bar is an irony-free shrine to celebrity culture. Your journey to fantasy land commences with a trip down a Big Brother-style raised walkway, with...

South Kensington: 264 Brompton Road, SW3 2AS

Distance: 0.7 mls

Swag & Tails

The Swag & Tails feels like a cosy village local in the Surrey Stockbroker Belt, such is its setting, deep in an exceptionally exclusive warren of mews houses. The...

Knightsbridge: 10-11 Fairholt Street, SW7 1EG

Distance: 0.7 mls

The Pembroke

Grand gastropub down Old Brompton Road

Earl's Court: 261 Old Brompton Road, SW5 9JA

Distance: 0.7 mls

Churchill Arms

Simply put, this pub is brilliant - go. Proper cosy with pictures of the cigar-chomping chief, and drenched in the comfy glow of a roaring fire. Landlord Gerry...

Kensington: 119 Kensington Church Street, W8 7LN

Distance: 0.7 mls

Tini Bar

Classic cocktail lounge

Chelsea: 87-89 Walton Street, SW3 2HP

Distance: 0.8 mls

Kensington Wine Rooms

Enjoyable wine bar with food

Notting Hill: 127-129 Kensington Church Street, W8 7LP

Distance: 0.8 mls

Enterprise

With faded-chic furniture and windows draped in swathes of fabric, Enterprise works the French bistro look well. Most of the diminutive floor space is taken up with...

South Kensington: 35 Walton Street, SW3 2HU

Distance: 0.8 mls

Bart's

'Top-secret' speakeasy

Chelsea: past the lobby down the corridor at the left, Chelsea Cloisters, 87 Sloane Avenue, SW3 3DW

Distance: 0.8 mls

Admiral Codrington

From the outside, the Cod appears to be a friendly old boozer, but inside the look has been cleaned up with cream walls, spot lighting and varnished pine furniture,...

South Kensington: 17 Mossop Street, SW3 2LY

Distance: 0.8 mls

Warwick Arms

If location, location, location was a landlords' mantra rather than an estate agents', the Warwick would be in deep trouble - stuck on a god-awful stretch of road...

Earl's Court: 160 Warwick Road, W14 8PS

Distance: 0.8 mls

Townhouse

You'll need to pick your night at this bijou cocktail bar tucked into a Georgian townhouse. When it's busy, it retains the exclusive yet accessible vibe that once...

Knightsbridge: 31 Beauchamp Place, SW3 1NU

Distance: 0.9 mls

Windsor Castle

The Windsor Castle is so cutely historic, with its set of small interconnected rooms, wood panelling and open fires, that it looks more like a film set than the...

Kensington: 114 Campden Hill Road, W8 7AR

Distance: 0.9 mls

Mokssh

Lovers of lip-tingling cocktails and tempting Indian tapas will enjoy the bright pinks and reds of the decor, which lights up a depressing stretch of Fulham Road, even...

Fulham: 222-224 Fulham Road, SW10 9NB

Distance: 0.9 mls

Notting Hill Arts Club

This is the kind of space that really shouldn't work in posh Notting Hill, but, thankfully, does. It's not fancy; in fact, it's quite battered around the edges, and...

Notting Hill: 21 Notting Hill Gate, W11 3JQ

Distance: 0.9 mls

Zuma

This capacious, Japan-themed bar-restaurant has an open-plan design that one suspects would make the place terribly sad and terribly dated if there were no one in it....

Knightsbridge: 5 Raphael Street, SW7 1DL

Distance: 0.9 mls

Cadogan Arms

Martin brothers' new pub

Chelsea: 298 King's Road, SW3 5UG

Distance: 1 mls

Apartment 195 (branch of Jamies)

Chelsea: 195 King's Road, SW3 5ED

Distance: 1 mls