The most-loved bars and pubs in London

Outdoor spaces are big business come summer, and this seasonal pop-up between Waterloo and Westminster bridges is one of the biggest and best in London. Returning for its summer season from Thursday April 17, it boasting lovely views over the Thames and an eclectic programme of entertainment encompassing drag shows, DJs, live performances and themed club nights. What’s on at Between the Bridges? This summer’s events programme includes plenty of tried-and-tested favourites, from Barrioke with EastEnders actor Shaun Williamson (Friday May 9) and Taylor-themed party Swiftoggedon (Sunday May 25) to the Old Dirty Brasstards performing Abba (Friday June 6), Motown-themed immersive dining experience Soul Supper (various dates) and weekly bottomless brunches themed around everything from Whitney Houston to Dirty Dancing.  There’s plenty of free entertainment on too, including after-work drinks on Thursdays soundtracked by old-school hip hop and RnB from resident DJs, Friday night’s Dock Discos featuring contemporary house and disco tunes, and Guilty Pleasures featuring nostalgic 90s and noughties pop bangers every Saturday evening.  What food vendors are at Between the Bridges? The South Bank has long been a hub of great street food, and this year Time Out is getting in on the act, partnering with Between the Bridges to launch Time Out Eat Street, a mini food market featuring some of our favourite street food vendors from around the city, as selected by our Food & Drink Editor,...

This is a proper old-school boozer: think massive TV screens, swirly carpeting that’s absorbed decades’ worth of secrets and a menu that runs all the way from crisps to nuts. But when the Grade II-listed building (replete with stained-glass windows) is this beautiful and the karaoke nights are this legendary, what more do you need? The pub was originally built in the 1930s for Truman’s Brewery and you sense the atmosphere is little-changed since. Fun fact: The Army and Navy featured in the 2024 Netflix drama Baby Reindeer, though its scenes were actually set in Edinburgh. The magic of telly, eh? Order food in While there’s no food prepared on-site, The Army and Navy has teamed up with Yard Sale to make pizza available to order in. This kind of arrangement always feels a bit a naughty somehow, which is part of the fun. Invite everyone The beer garden is huge, with covered seating and a lovely mural that depicts people milling about a picturesque park. Fittingly, there are enough uncovered benches for an entire squadron. RECOMMENDED: Stoke Newington area guide.

Do you like music? You’ll love the Beatles. Enjoy movies? Check out a little gem known as ‘The Godfather’. Fan of the dramatic arts? Do yourself a favour, mate: Shakespeare. Thank me later. Am I about to compare Noble Rot to Shakespeare? No! Kind of. It’s more that if you’re a fan of really nice food and wine you should definitely go to Noble Rot. It is a no-brainer. Anything I write after this point is garnish. When, one lunchtime, I walked into the Bloomsbury restaurant and wine bar, a blissful calm set over me, similar to how the barefoot pilgrim Louis IV must have felt on arriving at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres. Some divine harmony, running through the mellow decor, extending into the staff and finally through the menu and wine list. Everything is on point. Everything is nice. The bread is a Rush-esque power trio of carbohydrates: soda, focaccia, and sourdough selflessly working together to achieve a common goal. The slipsole - a kind of buttery, beautiful ellipse - may well be the restaurant’s special move. This fish is a soft and smokey wonder that refuses to not be eaten. Similarly charismatic were the comte beignets. Dusted in parmesan and served with pickled walnut ketchup (a more well-read and worldly Daddies Sauce), these bad boys made me flout my own ‘no more oily crispy things filled with hot goo’ rule. Crucially everything tasted of something. This shouldn’t be a remarkable quality in a restaurant, but how often have you paid through the nose for...

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...

A former school for girls is now offering an education in beer. The chapel-shaped, Victorian building is a bit of an anomaly on Tottenham’s High Road, in among the corner shops and with a glimmer of Spurs’ shiny new HQ in the distance. Up until recently, it was The Pride of Tottenham, a rowdy match-day pub that shut up shop following noise complaints. Transforming the empty and unloved building into what they’re hoping will be an all-round more neighbour-friendly hangout is the Night Tales team, as well as Tom Gibson, the man behind Dalston cocktail bar Ruby’s. Although the sight of a bouncer on the door midweek felt intimidating, inside, it was welcoming. The pub should suit the seasons – one side is light-filled and modern, while a partition separates off a dark, distressed room with a mahogany bar and vintage signs bearing old-fashioned crests. But the most important season of all is the footie kind – blinds had come down for better TV viewing when we visited. If football is this pub’s first love, beer would have to be its second. A long blackboard advertises 20 ‘house’, ‘craft’ and ‘cask’ beers. Local breweries Redemption, Pressure Drop and Beavertown are represented, but you’ll also spy Walthamstow and Bermondsey beers, plus Guinness and Heineken – there’s a refreshing absence of craft beer snobbery that seems to have struck a chord with locals already. Burgers from top patty peddlers Lucky Chip also hit the mark, enjoyed in a picnic-bench-filled beer garden...

When it opened in 2009, Frank’s was a pioneering venture at the forefront of the Peckham neighbourhood’s hipsterfication. And now? This rooftop bar and restaurant sits as confidently as the London skyline – the Gherkin, Walkie-Talkie and Shard all loiter in the distance – that it looks onto. With the Bold Tendencies not-for-profit art organisation part of the venue, this is a space that prides itself on creativity. From its signature cocktails (Aperol Sour, anyone?) to the tapas-style menu (the grilled prawns alone are worth the trip), Frank’s is now the definition of a London institution. Don’t try going in the winter though, this is a summer-only operation, open from May to September.  Time Out tip There was a time when you couldn’t look at Instagram without seeing the pink stairwell that leads to Frank’s. It’s a classic for a reason, so don’t be shy and get snapping. What’s nearby? Peckham might be ever-changing, but Peckhamplex is forever. The cinema is always cheap and always a good time. RECOMMENDED: The 20 best things to do in Peckham.

Drinkers and diners are both happy at this brick and timber 1930s boozer. 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, 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. You'll also find an array of entertainment here, including DJs, folk nights and a comedy club. 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.

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.

You know what London is missing? A colossal bar in the middle of Covent Garden where you can watch Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen and The Shining on 30 silver screens while simultaneously cheering on the Europa League. Said no one ever. Yet Bloodsports, from the same minds behind Meatliquor, seems to really be onto something here. This is the sort of unpretentious late-night fun that has been lacking in central London for far too long. A quick stroll from Covent Garden tube, and slyly hidden down a corridor entrance sandwiched between a coffee hatch and a Tesco, this place is a Tardis: a vast, windowless den where it could be 10am or 10pm - you wouldn’t know for the glare of red neon lights and lack of windows. A generous bar lines one side of the room, another is closer to the back, and the whole space is kitted out with stacks of tables and benches as well as arcade games and pool. There’s plenty of organised fun to be had if you fancy it, though take caution if you choose to do karaoke: it is ‘on demand’, meaning pretty much the whole venue will watch (and hear) your rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’. This kind of huge, big-booking place could be hellish – hello, Brewdog Waterloo – but somehow, it’s not. Bloodsports is cool in a sort of self-consciously cringey way, working well because it truly goes all-in on the ‘horror movie meets sports bar’ theme. There’s a ‘bloods’ menu, with lip-smackingly good tomato-based cocktails (your classic bloody marys, as well as...

A subterranean, late-night drinking spot on the outskirts of Chinatown. Cocktails are fun and food is delicious. Older, chicer readers might remember as 1980s new romantic nightclub Limelight and even older readers might remember it as the basement of the Welsh Presbyterian chapel. The less said of its era as a Walkabout the better. In charge are the Boxer brothers (Jackson of Brunswick House and Frank of Frank’s in Peckham) who head up a highball cocktail menu and small plates selection with olive, octopus and guindilla spikes, devilled eggs with potted shrimp and toasted sandwiches with Paris ham, Templegall cheese, boudin noir and Aleppo pepper honey. Absolutely fabulous.