The best bars in Marylebone

Formerly known as Seymour’s Parlour, and found in this follow-up to the original Zetter Townhouse hotel, this bar looks like the home of a well-travelled, eccentric booze collector. With its deep red walls, wooden furniture and fabric furnishings, it’s like a living room filled with a treasure trove of knick-knacks. There's a stonking cocktail menu, and we advise champagne concoctions to match the plush setting; they’re dangerously easy to drink.

FAM somehow cultivates a neighbourhood bar feel despite being a moment’s walk from Selfridges. It’s down to friendly staff and a warm, glowy decor, plus a wall of vinyl for you to select from like a giant hipster jukebox. Cocktails championing local ingredients are flawless yet affordable, put together by a team of world-renowned bartenders. Yes, FAM!

Although Artesian is tucked inside one of central London’s elite hotels, it does its best to maintain a down-to-earth edge. It’s a stunning room – epically tall ceilings, doric columns, blinging chandeliers. Cocktails are flamboyant, service is smart, prices are steep.

28°-50° is well-regarded for its French-inspired wine list and food menu, and this branch is a bright space where light fills the room and bounces off glassware on a marble-topped central bar. The wine list is a thing of joy, offering upwards of 30 varied and delicious wines from on-song suppliers, many of them small producers.

Purl is one of London’s first speakeasy-type bars and it’s still popular for its playful takes on tippling. Order drinks that whizz and pop and don’t be surprised to find dry ice in abundance. The layout of the bar, over a number of smallish spaces in a vaulted basement, gives the opportunity for genuine seclusion – settle in for a session backed by classy jazz tunes.

This basement bar has a faux colonial look, with light flickering through curtains, floral wallpaper and vintage sewing machines on tables. To fit the setting, Burlock does a strong line in rum: punters can choose something spiced, light, dark or even overproof. 

A swanky wine bar set within a mock Tudor townhouse, Clarette is a curious mash-up between city-boy boozer and early modern pub. There are plush pink velvet bar stools and plenty of marble, but also lattice windows and a couple of weird stained glass crests. French wine is the thing here – and it’s very good. It’s also reasonably priced given the location – although cheese boards and snacks don’t offer quite the same value for money.

Okay, so it’s a little dated and it’s now an Indian (and has a food menu to match), but Salt still offers as wide a choice of whiskies as you’ll find anywhere in London –there are 200 available by the glass or bottle. Amid the hardwood and natural slate of the solitary bar-room – a classy, dark, square-shaped interior at odds with the gaudy brightness of Edgware Road – Salt feels like a sanctuary for discerning followers of the grain.

The Wigmore, a self-styled ‘modern British tavern’ at The Langham Hotel, is said to mirror public houses of the past. It’s a bit fancier than that, in truth, with Michel Roux Jr having devised the menu of hearty pub grub. Prices are refreshingly on a par with other pubs in the area. It’s understandably popular with media types working in the area, so make sure you have your elbows at the ready if also visiting straight from the office.