Cocktails

• Seasonal brasserie Neighbour opens on Kentish Town Road

  300 Kentish Town Road has just been taken over again, this time by seasonally focused brasserie Neighbour, who’ll be catering for locals and visitors to The Forum with lunch, brunch, dinners and drinks above ground, plus cocktails in basement bar Jukes.

• The Mint Gun Club is Stokie’s new cocktail hotspot from an award-winning bartender

  There'll be tea and more in the deli, but the cocktails are the REAL draw at Stoke Newington's Mint Gun Club, the newest project from cocktail master Rich Hunt.

• Test Driving Coupette in Bethnal Green - a very French cocktail bar

  With Calvados and more on the menu, Coupette is a very French cocktail bar in Bethnal Green. We head east for an early look. 

• An Espresso Martini Festival is coming to London

  

  Yes, you read that right. An entire FESTIVAL dedicated to the mighty espresso martini. It's being set up by Mr Black (who have a similar festival in Australia) and DrinkUp.London. There will be 50 bars serving £5 espresso martinis all over the capital. All the caffeine infused cocktails you could ever want.

  Confirmed so far are Milk & Honey, Jason Atherton’s Blind Pig, all the Grinds, Cocktail Trading Company,

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• Downstairs at Machiya is a new basement bar from the Kanada-Ya team

  After enjoying a homely Japanese dinner in Machiya, head downstairs to their new basement bar to try the whiskey, cocktails, and maybe even bowl of lotus root chips with miso mayo (if you have room).

• Nine Lives brings waste-free booze and food to London Bridge

  

  Waste nothing, make cocktails - that’s the ethos behind Sweet&Chilli’s latest venture, a new bar called Nine Lives based in London Bridge.

  Operating out of a Victorian basement in Bermondsey, their “total passion project” will be dishing up cocktails and food that reuses ingredients otherwise be destined for the bin. It's a trend we’re seeing again and again lately, from

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• Does Dukes London serve the city's best martinis?

  

  Given how much we, or at least I, love martinis - it's a mystery as to how it took so long to get around to trying those at Dukes. Because, if you didn't know it already, the St James hotel has forged quite the reputation as purveyor of the best in town.

  What Dukes has going for it, in spades, is history. It used to be the favoured watering hole of the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. Legend has it that the author came up with Bond's catchphrase 'shaken not

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• Darbaar launches Lotus, a new bar in The City featuring Indian-inspired drinks

  

  Another new bar is heading for the City as the people behind Darbaar are set to open a new bar called Lotus. This was previously part of the restaurant itself and now it'll have a menu of spice-infused spirits and Indian twists on classics. Chef-patron Abdul Yaseen has also created a fresh menu of Royal-inspired dishes to accompany all the new booze.

  Starting with those cocktails, they're

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• Australasia’s Best Bar, The Baxter Inn comes to London

  

  These days you don't need to travel the world to visit the best bars - they're all coming to London. Dead Rabbit is coming to Claridge's and now The Bloomsbury Club Bar (BCB) is bringing in cult Sydney bar The Baxter Inn for a bar residency this month, which kicks off on Wednesday 24th

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• London's best cocktails for World Cocktail Day

   In honour of World Cocktail Day, Saturday 13 May, we asked the Hot Dinners Drinks Editor, Louis Fernando, to select a shortlist of five cocktails you should try. Here's what he came up with...

• Bar Termini Centrale opens on Duke Street Bar Termini gets a new sister bar just off Oxford Street

  Knockout cocktails, coffee and plentiful Italian cuisine

• Jason Atherton's City Social pioneers world's first augmented reality cocktail menu

  

  For London’s top cocktail bars, innovation and experience is often a key differentiating factor. Jason Atherton’s Michelin-starred restaurant and bar, City Social is set to raise this bar once again, announcing the world's first augmented reality cocktail menu.  

  Due to launch this June, the cocktail menu, entitled MIRAGE features 12 cocktails which are then enhanced via a

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• Trash Tiki's Iain Griffiths & Kelsey Ramage take charge of the drinks at The Curtain

  

  It's not long now until big new Shoreditch hotel, The Curtain opens, bringing with it Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster. And now we've news that the drinks should be just as special, led by Iain Griffiths and Kelsey Ramage.

  Most recently in charge of the drinks at wastED this year, with their anti-waste Trash Tiki and both part of the Mr Lyan empire, they'll be in charge of drinks at the main restaurant, the

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• Coupette in Bethnal Green sees ex-Savoy bartender bring a French accent to the East End

  Ex-Beaufort Bar head bartender heads east

• White Lyan bar Hoxton becomes Super Lyan

  

  It’s all change at White Lyan. Ryan Chetiyawardana and Iain Griffiths created ripples throughout the bartending community when they first opened White Lyan in 2013, serving a menu of entirely pre-batched cocktails made with no ice or citrus. The groundbreaking Hoxton bar will undergo a two-phase transformation which begins on Friday 14th April with the launch of Super Lyan.

  This will see the

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