The most-loved bars and pubs in London

In recent years this brick and timber 1930s boozer has become south east London’s favourite unofficial queer venue, thanks to an array of campy entertainment including drag and cabaret, plus queer speed-dating events and nights like Flapjack and Pop-Up Dyke Bar. Drinkers and diners are also all happy here; the former get a sterling selection of cask and craft ales, plus cocktails and an acceptable wine list. The latter get a menu that changes regularly, depending on the pop-up kitchen – at the moment its some of the best pizza in London, courtesy of Dough Hands – plus hefty Sunday roasts. There’s plenty of seating: at large wooden tables next to the central bar, in the back garden and in the front yard facing Nunhead Green. It might also be the only pub in London with a shrine to Britney Spears. And the name? A nunnery once occuped this site; the rebellious Mother Superior was murdered during the Reformation and her head stuck on a pikestaff on the green. Lovely stuff!

One of London’s cosiest LGBT+ boozers. Just off the main Columbia Road drag, its Sunday roasts are pretty special (served from 12-5pm, with booking recommended) - as is the impressive, and every so slightly NSFW wall-art of various hand-drawn, cartoon genitals. There’s also drag queen-hosted karaoke every Saturday night from 8pm. Wetherspoons it certainly ain’t.

Rare is the pub that opens at 8am and isn’t around the corner from an early morning meat market (or a Wetherspoons). The Angel – which is from the same team as Highgate’s primo gastropub the Red Lion & Sun – is bucking the trend with a classy breakfast bistro offering, before easing punters into lunchtime wine and evening feasts (though not on Sun-Tue, when it shuts up shop at 6pm - they’re not maniacs). Booze begins at 10am, if you’re wondering, with a kimchi bloody mary one of the more acceptable pre-lunch libations on offer.  Formerly the unremarkable Angel Inn, the Angel relaunched in 2025 on a prominent corner of the quaint Highgate High Street, well aware that it needed to offer something different in an area already packed with exceptional pubs. Despite being super close to the aforementioned Red Lion & Sun, ever-popular Flask, cosy Prince of Wales and Americana-themed Dukes of Highgate, the Angel stands out. Airy and bright, the space feels more like a Parisian brasserie than a north London boozer, with classy touches such as elegant fairground-styled painted logos for your pints rather than ugly branded pump clips. Kippers, full english brekkies and a selection of pastries are available until 5pm, after which the evening menu kicks in, with the likes of bavette steak and chips, confit duck leg, and Wagyu double cheeseburger up for grabs. But this isn’t one of the gastropubs where you’ll be sneered at for only ordering booze - from what we can see on our visit,...

It might look like a classic London pub from the outside, all Britain in Bloom-worthy hanging baskets and an extremely pub-like name picked out in gold lettering, but the Camberwell Arms is not a place to watch the footie or sink eight pints and waddle home semi-conscious (maybe try the Hermits Cave across the road for such tomfoolery). Locals have known this for the past decade, ever since the grand Victorian boozer was given a serious sprucing up in 2014 under the auspices of chef director Mike Davies. Mike had form; starting out at one of south London’s original gastropubs, the Anchor & Hope in Waterloo, before setting up another south London institution, the much-loved hipster HQ that is Frank’s rooftop bar in Peckham.  ‘Sublime’ doesn’t even begin to do it justice. It is nothing less than art Since then, the Camberwell Arms has remained the very picture of modesty. Settle into the spacious back room, an airy but still-intimate space, and the lack of fanfare (stripped wooden floorboards and the occasional stylish print is about as close to grandiose design as it gets here) only goes to prove how confident they are in the quality of the food. Who needs jazzed-up interiors when the cooking is this compelling?  The menu is short but not too short, seasonal without being smug, and features a wry nod to the room’s pub past; a starter of beer onions on toast with aged gruyère. It’s a frankly indecent snack, snaked with sloppy boozed-up ribbons of onions, the particularly...

Mr Lyan aka Ryan Chetiyawardana is London’s leading mixologist.  A scientist with a snappy dress sense and a fresh approach to cocktails, over the years he’s built up bars only to tear them down at their height, like some boozy oligarch. Before Lyaness there was White Lyan, Super Lyan and Dandelyan, the latter of which was declared the ‘World’s Best Bar’ mere months before Chetiyawardana closed it to open Lyaness in the same location.  A Thames-facing spot within design-forward hotel Sea Containers London, the powder-blue room is lush and cosy, with a deep green serpentinite bar and windows looking directly out onto the river. Expect a blend of ‘fun, clarity and deliciousness’ – their words – from the cocktail list, which features ingredients that run the gamut from intriguing to downright challenging, though always outrageously tasty.  Themed around collaboration in all its various forms, the most recent edition of the yearly-changing drinks menu incorporates such barmy concoctions as a ‘brainless melon curaçao’, made by inoculating cantaloupe and honeydew melons with penicillium, and ‘leather soda’, created by The bar’s innovative outlook recently earned it the Best Cocktail Menu award from the World’s 50 Best Bars, and last year it was named the first-ever 3 PIN bar, awarded by the Pinnacle Guide – which is kind of like the Michelin Guide for bars.  Drink this  Our favourite drink on the current menu – and, believe us, we pretty much tried them all – is the Moo Reed, a...

Yes, it’s inspired by the Bauhaus design school of interwar Germany, and yes, it has three colourful shapes instead of a name over the door. But for all its braininess, this neighbourhood bar in Haggerston (previously acclaimed among the World’s 50 Best) never forgets that you’re here to have fun. The menu focuses on a short run of pre-bottled, affordable house cocktails, many served with massive, geometric ice cubes (and oblongs, and spheres) and molecular garnishes like a tiny cube of Campari jelly. The actual mixing stuff – including some wacky experiments in flavour and form – happens up the road at a multifunctional sister space called the Warehaus. Friendly staff clad in colourful boiler suits are happy to explain the science. True to Bauhaus principles of function dictating form, the space is bright and breezy with a lino floor, lots of chrome and the faint air of a science lab – especially in the back room and capacious downstairs bar. In many ways it’s the polar opposite of your classic cocktail bar: no velvet drapes, no backlit bottles, no flamboyant shaker action. But despite the stripped-back décor, it’s no less a vibe once the lights are turned down. Order this If there’s a single signature cocktail here, it’s probably the kazimir: a short, elegant blend of vodka infused with peach yogurt (yes, really) and absinthe. It’s a grown-up drink with the faintest delightful hint of a kid’s fromage frais – not a bad way to sum up Shapes’s playful-yet-rigorous approach...

If you find yourself yearning for red cups, beer pong and running around a stranger’s house while buzzed on rum punch, this one is for you. House Party, co-founded by rapper Stormzy, is a unique bar concept modelled around an old-school house party, slap-bang in the middle of Soho. Set across a seven-floor townhouse, you’ll find a teenager’s bedroom, complete with Page Three pin-ups tacked to the wall and a clunky, noughties-style PC; the parents’ room, where you can roll around in a double bed and queue karaoke songs; a kitchen (known to host secret gigs); a rooftop (for beer pong); a living room with game consoles and a DJ-soundtracked basement that fills up like a club. The attention to detail is quite wild – at moments I felt genuinely nostalgic (especially when I was belting out Avril Lavigne in the bedroom). It’s recommended you register for a party ‘invitation’ online for priority access, rather than risking not being let in on the night. Make sure you arrive before 10pm, so you don’t miss any surprise performances.  Order this The cocktail menu has all of the classics, but the standout is the ‘Kitchen Punch’, made with rum, blueberry purée and pineapple juice. It sounds like the sort of questionable concoction you made in university halls using leftover mixers and odd spirits, but actually tastes good.   Time Out tip Want a little privacy for you and your mates? You can book rooms – the basement, terrace treehouse, living room, parents’ bedroom and teenager’s...

Some pubs are a work of art, but Mayfair’s Audley Public House takes the idea to the next level. Iwan and Manuela Wirth, founders of the renowned Hauser and Wirth galleries, re-launched this impressive Victorian gin palace in 2022. And ‘impressive’ really is the word: here you’ll find a trippy ceiling mosaic from artist Phyllida Barlow and, in the Mount St. Restaurant upstairs, actual Andy Warhol and Lucien Freud paintings on the wall. It’s pretty intoxicating to neck humble pints in such proximity to artistic greatness, though naturally the pub’s food and drinks offering is pretty swish too. With poshed-up favourites (think pies and fish and chips) in the kitchen and beers from Battersea’s Sambrook’s Brewery behind the bar, it’s a feast for the eyes and tastebuds. Order this The Audley’s Scotch egg, perfectly gooey and served in two halves, sunny side up, should be on permanent display at the Tate. Time Out tip The Mount St Restaurant boasts four private dining rooms, including The Scottish Room, a Highlands-inspired creation that features a striking cluster of antlers affixed to the ceiling. Great Scott! RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in Mayfair.

Keep your eyes peeled for this one: it’s sunk beneath Greek Street, accessed through a dodgy-looking doorway and a seriously scruffy staircase. If there’s a less salubrious introduction to a bar in London then, well, we’d like to see it. These days, the term ‘speakeasy’ is bandied about with reckless abandon by bar owners desperate to adorn their venue with an elusive, exclusive and illicit allure yet few are the genuine McCoy – not least because if you’re shouting about what you’re doing, then you’re not a genuine speakeasy. This old school drinking den and members club, however, is refreshingly free of any such affectation. Known as Trisha’s, due to the leading lady of the venue, Trisha Bergonzi, there’s a small bar, a scattering of tables and chairs and pictures of boxers, mafia types and Italian football teams adorning the worn walls. There’s a very small courtyard out the back and only one proper lavatory. It looks like the kind of place where someone would get whacked in ‘The Sopranos’. True to a real speakeasy, the drink selection is pretty average. There are some bottled beers, a couple of wines and a quite random selection of spirits. The New Evaristo Club has some very devoted regulars. If they aren't entertainment enough, there are some jazz nights.

Tequila’s smokier hipster cousin mezcal was once essentially endemic to a couple of Mexican states (notably Oaxaca), and while that remains the case in terms of production of the agave-based spirit, there’s no denying that London now very literally boasts mezcal bars in the double figures. And the more the merrier. Handsome Bethnal Green addition Little Fires boasts warm, colourful decor, a slick listening bar-style downstairs area, and a short but impressive food menu made in partnership with renowned Oaxaca bar Sabina Sabe and its chef Rodolfo Castellanos. As with the food, the cocktail menu is very punchy – there are only actually four mezcal-based entries (also partnered with Sabina Sabe), but they’re all bangers. Time Out tip Mezcal is nominally the main event: the Espresso Cafe was my pick of the cocktails, a faintly revelatory distant cousin to the espresso martini that tastes like deep smoked coffee. But actually the duck tacos dorados were low-key astonishing – the comfort food of the gods – and Little Fires is as good a shout for a late night snack as it is a drink.