The people behind inimitable East London pizza joint Voodoo Ray's and Dalston Superstar are launching Ray’s Bar, a new basement cocktail bar on Kingsland Road.

Punters who choose to follow the drinks menu as intended, split up as it is into aperitifs, mains and desserts will be in for a long boozy night. You won’t even be able to crack into one of ‘mains’ until it’s past midnight, giving you all the more

We love bar snack innovation, so the new kabuki cocktail and theatre snack menu at ROKA Aldwych sounds right up our street.

Inspired by Japanese theatre, the new bar snacks incude Japanese popcorn and sweet potato crackers served with the Kabuki Hour cocktails. They've flown over a kakigori machine to serve up boozy slush-puppie style drinks such as a yuzu and blackberry kakigori, or cherry blossom and almond kakigori made from Japanese Shochu alongside their classic

17/10/16 - updated with opening plans

There's been a fair bit of end-is-nigh-ing in Finsbury Park when it became known that local live music venue The Silver Bullet was closing. But we're MUCH more interested in what's coming in its place. It's been bought by the people behind Goodman and will open as Zelman Drinks.

Hot Dinners caught up with Goodman operations director Dave Strauss who told us that they want to open a

 Crouch End has a cracking new bar serving up snacks and small plates which is worth a trip 

Updated 13/9/16 with drink details

A whole bunch of rum cocktails are coming to Duke Street with the latest from the people behind Opium. Called Burlock (and briefly also Plantation), the basement bar is all based around the 1920s - 40s period of Havana, so expect all the rum you can handle and a colonial style for the place itself. Alongside the rum, there will be cachaça, rhum agricole and mezcal. And apparently, a Havana style barber shop doubles

We got in touch with some of the winners to ask them for their recommendation for the must-have drinks from their lists at the moment.

So Sager + Wilde Paradise Row are launching an Old Fashioned (the drink AND the style) cocktail bar up on their Mezzanine level, and if that wasn't enough to get you down there pronto, just feast your eyes on the cocktail list they've knocked up.

• Classic Old Fashioned
• Olive Oil Old Fashioned
• Toasted Coconut Old Fashioned
• Burnt Maple Old Fashioned
• Tonka Bean & Rooibos Old Fashioned

Alongside

It's been quite a while in the planning but the downstairs bar at Rok in Shoreditch is now officially ready to go. The a new 24 seat bar space will open this month and here's what you need to know:

They have an ace mixologist on the job - the seasonal cocktail menu is designed by Matt Whiley.

The food may have a touch of Ikea about it but it also sounds like perfect bar snacks - such as duck pate with fermented

The bar at Galvin at Windows right at the top of the Hilton Park Lane was always a pretty sweet spot to drink, but the addition of a new gourmet fast food menu has it back at the top of our must-visit list.

Head Chef Joo Won has come up with all manner of enticing bar food for his La Nuit menu. So there's a Dirty Smoked Bacon Burger (£14), the Galvin's Dog Deluxe - both £14, there's a Dirty Portobello Mushroom Cheese Burger (£12) and Joo's also putting on his

Pimlico is getting a new bar - and the bar snacks don't sound half bad. The Clarendon Cocktail Cellar is a new drinking hole underneath the Artist Residence hotel (the name refers to the pub that used to occupy the site).

Expect all manner of art-inspired cocktails denoted by the artwork on the drinks coaster they're served with. So with Georges Seurat’s ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ the drink will be gin, lemon, Oleo Saccharum, tea,

This looks rather fun. It's a Sake flight on the bar menu at Bar 45 at 45 Park Lane hotel. It ties in with the fact that the hotel's head sommelier Vanessa Cinti has just qualified as a sake sommelier.

For £45 (£10 for a single glass) you get a flight of three small producer sakes - Amabuki Marigold brewed with yeast from the blossoms of marigold, Kirin Vintage 2013 and Masuizumi Junmai Daiginjo a special sake aged in barrels of Domaine Ramonet. There's a

Long-time followers of Hot Dinners will probably know how much we love a good Martini so news that one of the World's 50 best bars was opening an outpost in London with a singular focus on a perfectly made Martini made us very happy.

Barcelona's Dry Martini By Javier de las Muelas has consistently sat within the World’s 50 Best Bars list for the past six years. The London bar will open on 1 October in the Meliá White House hotel by Regent's Park.

The

Artesian at The Langham has been named World's Best Bar three years in a row, so clearly they're doing something right when it comes to cocktails. But now this world class cocktail lounge has a bar food menu to match.

We reported recently on the arrival of the SNAX tapas menu, created by the hotel's Executive Chef Chris King, in