Bar

17/6/26 - updated with more details and an opening date

Earlier this year, The Crusting Pipe, a mainstay of Covent Garden for over 45 years, closed. It was sad to see it go but, in fairness, the last time we were in the area, it was almost empty. 

And now its replacement, Mr Fogg's Market Tavern, is nearly upon us. Mr Fogg's is a group that has taken over quite a few difficult sites and made a success of them, so perhaps they're the ones who can bring

Three incredibly experienced bar professionals have set out on their own, opening Without Papers, a Shoreditch bar serving up excellent Italo/British cocktails. We pulled up a stool at the bar.

They already have orange, yellow, scarlet, blue and violet Little Doors around town and now a Little Neon Door is getting ready to open in Shoreditch. 

Taking over what was once Floripa cocktail bar, this is going to follow the template of the other, very successful, Little Doors in the growing franchise. So it's essentially themed after a house party, and you could have cocktails in the Sitting Room, a party in the Living Room and Kitchen, karaoke in the shower and loot the fancy dress cupboard in the Dressing Room (which also has karaoke).

Alongside the cocktails,

The Doghouse Distillery is in Battersea but now they're also opening a brand new bar, just a mile away, that's just off Clapham Common. They actually popped up there for a short while back in December, but since the beginning of the year, they've been changing the space into a proper permanent bar for the local distillery. 

The main distillery itself mainly focuses on gin, vodka and "moonshine", the latter of which is their version of an American-style whisky. And that's going to be used in what they're claiming is "London’s largest Old Fashioned menu", which will also include Old

We went to expand our wine tastes with the eclectic Eastern European-focused list at new Notting Hill wine bar Sova.

Updated 12.01pm - yes this was our 2026 April Fool's (although we maintain it's only a matter of time before it happens...) Click here to see all our April Fool's stories in one place.

You can hardly move right now in East London for hip vinyl bars, but one new Shoreditch spot is hoping to switch things up a level. Seedy in Shoreditch sees two well-connected bar alumni opening their first standalone venture.

What will set them apart from their fellow music bars in the city is

When you learn that the duo behind new Mayfair bar Brutes have an absolute ton of restaurant and bar experience between them, it's perhaps no surprise that they've managed to feature every current bar and snacks trend in town. But a proper look at what they have planned for their Bruton Place bar shows that they are intending to take almost everything to the next level.

While everyone else is doing martinis, Brutes goes one further with a martini card that allows you to pick your base spirits, the style it's served (dry, wet, dirty and - a new one on us - brutal), plus the

For years we’ve kept Londoners apprised of the hottest restaurants to have on their radar. Now we’re doing the same for the city’s bars. Every season, we’ll update this list with the hot new bars you should know about. 

If you've been to El Pastor in Soho, you'll have noticed that their basement bar is closed for a complete overhaul. When it's finished, they'll be unveiling it as their new cocktail bar, El Siete.

The new look of the bar will be going for a brutalist and modernist approach, inspired by the same kind of architecture in Mexico City. It has a new entrance too, no longer tied to the entrance of El Pastor. You'll be able to track the bar down by the "discreet pink door" on Brewer Street and apparently that pink aesthetic will continue on the walls in the bar below.

Down there,

Newly opened in Covent Garden, Cato is a cocktail bar of two halves, with a seasoned bartender behind the drinks. We went in for an early look.  

It's one of London's best restaurants and has two Michelin stars to boot. But did you know that there's a new(ish) bar at A. Wong and you can try some of their food down there? We went along to see what they're serving up. 

Look, we love a gimmick as much as the next person, but even we were slightly taken aback by the upcoming Old Street bar FlipDog. The bar (which happens to be a cocktail bar rather than a hot dog place) is going to be using a Loggerhead method to make some of its drinks. That means they're going to be putting a 1200°C iron poker into the drink "to enhance flavour, texture, and aroma."

It all sounds completely wild, but the owners behind FlipDog do have prior. Co-owner Artem Skapenko co-owns HRAM and Loggerhead Kyiv, described as a hidden gem by the World's 50 Best. That also uses

Covent Garden is getting a New York-inspired cocktail bar that sounds like it could be very useful for brightening up January.

Called Cato, the bar is inspired by Cato Alexander, a New York bartender from the 18th Century, about whom Wikipedia says: "cocktail historians consider him to be 'America's first celebrity bartender.'" We didn't know there was such a thing as cocktail historians, but there you go. It comes from hospitality group Bart & Taylor, along with bartender Angelos Bafas (aka