Need a Drink? 5 Best Bars in London Right Now
Both astronomy enthusiasts and vacationers share the dream of witnessing the northern lights. Thankfully, they happen regularly. Looking for Bars in London read this information 5 Best Bars in London Right Now
Owner of the northern lights tour firm Lights Over Lapland and photographer Chad Blakely remarked, “The northern lights are happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year” (opens in new tab). But it doesn’t imply it’s simple to find them; you have to be there at the appropriate time.
According to the Troms Geophysical Observatory(opens in new tab), any location within the “auroral zone,” which is located within an approximate 1,550-mile (2,500-kilometer) radius of the North Pole, is the greatest location to view the northern lights. The aurora is most usually seen there, while it can occasionally be seen farther south during extremely powerful solar storms.
For instance, a strong solar outburst in March 1989 allowed individuals as far south as Honduras to briefly see the northern lights. However, there were also some drawbacks: the geomagnetic storm that boosted the aurora also momentarily cut out electricity over the whole Canadian province of Quebec.
To optimise visibility when in the auroral zone, it is essential to stay as far away from city lights as you can. It’s best to base yourself in a place with good infrastructure, such as Fairbanks, Alaska; Yellowknife, Canada; Svalbard, Norway; Abisko National Park, in Sweden; Rovaniemi, Finland; or pretty much anywhere in Iceland, as it can be quite difficult to enter the middle of the Arctic wilderness, even with a guide.
When the sky becomes sufficiently dark to see the aurora, between September and April is the greatest time of year to see the northern lights. (Locations in the far north enjoy the midnight sun, or summer days with 24 hours of daylight.) According to the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the biggest activity often occurs between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. (opens in new tab). Remember the moon’s phases, as a bright full moon could illuminate the night sky. Because you won’t be able to see the aurora through the clouds, you should also check your local weather prediction.
List of The Best Bars in London Right Now
1. Red Room
The Red Room is a wine bar providing innovative cocktails, an exceptional wine list, and artwork with red themes hidden behind a velvet curtain in The Connaught.
Red Room is The Connaught’s first new bar in more than ten years, which is especially thrilling given that the hotel’s main bar has twice been declared the best in Europe and won the World’s Best Bar award for 2021.
The spectacular interiors were created by Bryan O’Sullivan, whose previous works include The Berkeley Bar and The Painter’s Room at Claridge’s. With plush sofas, curving walls, and a soft colour scheme of pastel pinks, creamy neutrals, and greens, he intended to create an environment that makes you feel like you’re unwinding in the living room of an art collector. These elements provide the perfect canvas for the pieces on show.
The artwork is all by female artists; pieces by Jenny Holzer, Trina McKillen, and the upcoming Vietnamese artist Ti-a Thuy Nguyen are displayed proudly over the marble fireplace. Louise Bourgeois’ “I Am Rouge” is also prominently displayed.
Drinks
The main attraction here is wine, of course, and you can sample glasses of some of the best bottles in the world thanks to the stylish Coravin system, which preserves bottles for longer to allow servings by the glass.
The staff is pleased to guide you through the list because they are knowledgeable about the beverages available. Instead than having a glass thrown in your face, glasses are decanted and served on specially designed marble trolleys.
The walls’ red-hued artwork is continued in six wine-themed cocktails created by Director of Mixology Agostino Perrone. Martini lovers will love “White,” one of Red Room’s hallmark drinks, which has undertones of lemon and a tidy, silky finish. The bar’s version of a Negroni is called “Rose,” which substitutes mellow, berry-infused vodka for the gin and imparts a fragrant flavour to each sip. An amaranthus sprig is elegantly tucked inside the ice cube.
Food
Red Room’s cuisine is wonderful since it isn’t about munching on lettuce leaves while you drink powerful liquor. Ratte potatoes covered in a rich, truffle mayo, salmon sashimi served over sticky rice, and the acidic, mildly spicy Gochujang chicken oysters are all examples of comfort cuisine masquerading as classy bar snacks.
Verdict
You don’t have to be an art or wine enthusiast to enjoy this chic setting. To amaze your most discriminating friends, we highly recommend keeping this hidden treasure hidden. Allard, Sarah
Address: Red Room at The Connaught, Carlos Place, London W1K 2AL
2. La Goccia, Covent Garden
The Boglione family, who founded Petersham Nurseries, is the latest business venture of this cosy drinking bar in Covent Garden. Interiors that are influenced by the family’s horticulture roots are accessible through a red velvet curtain. There are dried flower displays and foliage on practically every surface, contemporary botanical paintings by Francesco Boglione cover the walls, and the sleek bar is constructed of hundreds of hand-dipped metal leaves. Sit down on a bar stool covered in leopard print that has twisted metal legs modelled after tree branches, or in an alcove filled with velvet sofas and worn-out leather seats.
Drinks
There are lots of wines and beers, as well as expertly prepared cocktails (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), on printed menus that are hand-tied with string. The cocktails are the stars of the show; the mixologists use an abundance of fresh herbs, fruits, and edible flowers, and the ingredients change according to the season. Our favourite drink was The Apple Star, a quick, energising concoction of JJ Whitley Gin, apple cordial, lime, and Amaretto. The Dark Chocolate Martini, a cocktail made with Vestal Vodka, oats, dark chocolate, and hazelnuts that also functions as pudding, is recommended for those with a sweet craving. Or, if a classic cocktail is more your style, ask the bartender for your preferred libation.
Food
The bar menu pays tribute to the restaurant next door, Petersham Nurseries. There are numerous Italian mini meals made with ingredients from the East Devon family farm. Order the fluffy dough balls called coccoli to dip in taleggio cream or gorgonzola dolce. We particularly adored the restaurant’s famous fried chicken, which was delivered with a dish of creamy lemon sauce for dipping.
Verdict
An excellent location to be aware of in the heart of London where you can escape the crowds. Toby Knight
Address: La Goccia, 1 Floral Street, London WC2E 9FB
3. Booking Office 1869, King’s Cross
Here is one of London’s truly outstanding spaces. This space, which was once the ticket hall for the original St. Pancras train station, was first unveiled as a bar in 2011 as part of Harry Handelsman’s enormously ambitious (and very welcome) conversion of George Gilbert Scott’s red-brick Victorian masterpiece into the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. There are cathedral-sized windows, corniced ceilings, brick arches, and enough oak panelling throughout the gothic revival building to support ten years’ worth of BBC period dramas. After you’d taken in the surrounds, though, the bar didn’t really grab your attention because it felt a little flimsy and like it was attempting to appeal to everyone. In order to transform the inside into a Victorian-style Winter Garden, Handelsman invited French-Mexican designer Hugo Toro a decade following the Booking Office’s restoration. As a result, the area is incredibly lush, resembling an ecosystem, and is situated halfway between tropical Havana and 19th-century London. A new fabric ceiling, clusters of white 3D-printed lamps flowering like snowdrops, giraffe-high palm palms, banquettes upholstered in a wonderful mottled blue and scarlet material, and two showcase pendant lights, each composed of 267 brass leaves, are among the other features. It now has a more cosy, incandescent atmosphere than before, is more romantic—possibly the ideal place to meet before eloping to Paris on the Eurostar outside—and boasts one of the greatest cocktail menus in the area.
Drinks
In terms of cocktails, 2022 will be the year of the classics, albeit with a few clever alterations and theatrical touches. At the Booking Office, one of the best bars in Kings Cross (and there is fierce competition), that means a pre-mixed House Martini, infused with beeswax and served on ice in its own little pharmacy-like bottle. Other Victorian-inspired signature drinks include a Victoria Sour (pisco, long pepper spice, and plum syrup), and Ol’ Signalman (pecan-infused bourbon, Cocchi Rosa, coconut bitters), the latter of which is finished off The food has also been fantastically improved, with dishes like fried chicken served with a yoghurt dip, bresaola and celeriac remoulade, or oysters from the raw bar – yes, there is now a raw bar; what would the Victorians have thought of that? – among other delightfully improved nibbles. can make an occasion out of it by sitting down to the lamb shoulder that has been slowly roasted.
Verdict
Finally, the Booking Office bar is a stand-alone attraction. You can linger for however long you like knowing that something is unique and cannot be found anywhere.
Address: Booking Office 1869, Euston Road, London NW1 2AR
4. Le Magritte, The Beaumont, Mayfair
Our moment is exciting. The hotel scene in London is currently incredibly lively; in fact, it hasn’t been this exciting since the Spice Girls shot Wannabe at the St. Pancras Renaissance. Hotels have been dusting off family antiques, playing musical chairs, and rearranging the pack during and after the lockdown. Claridge’s dug down into its basement and opened a new bar, and the Connaught did the same. Where Le Magritte bar once stood is now Gatsby’s Room, where the majority of drinks are of the infused-leaf variety. The Beaumont, famously built in an Art Deco car park and opened in 2014, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s been around since the days when Evelyn Waugh screeched around Mayfair in a Model T Ford. This new Magritte is a polished, clubbable bar with cherrywood panels, alabaster columns, and a gorgeous, leather-edged granite counter where bartenders polish glasses and time slows down. A 1950s artwork by the artist who goes by the same name, depicting a guy wearing a bowler hat and staring backwards with a crescent moon directly above him, sits in pride of place on the new terrace outside that looks out onto Brown Hart Gardens.
Drinks
Although it bears the surrealist painter’s name, the drinks here are classy 1920s varieties; there are no black umbrellas on the Pina Coladas. While you examine the menu, grab yourself a stool at the bar and order a quick Martinez mixed with a vintage-yet-new DR Harris pick-me-tonic. The menu was created by Antonino Lo Iacono, a recent hire from Mark’s Club, who rummaged through old cocktail books for recipes like the Bohemian 75 and added PX sherry to the usual suspects as well as absinthe, Paper Plane, and a Refashioned Old-Fashioned. There are many spirits available by the glass, and Guscombe is served with French sparklers.
Food
There are superb oysters on the half shell, kale crisps, French toast with bacon, and corndogs with a hint of strong mustard at the recently renovated Colony Grill restaurant, which is just a few yards through the lobby. Save some room since you’ll likely want to continue there.
Verdict
Although Bond seems to have enough of locations in the city where he may enjoy a Vesper Martini, we believe he would also enjoy this one. Scott Jordan
Address: Le Magritte at The Beaumont, 8 Balderton Street, Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF
5. The Painter’s Room, Claridge’s, Mayfair
After turning left through the lobby and right when you come across the rocking zebra, turn left when you come across Kirsten Scott Thomas. In any case, when you visit Claridge’s chic new bar, the directions will make sense. You can now bar hop your way through the Mayfair hotel, from its original drinking hole to the Fumoir and then here. It’s an Art Deco lozenge of a space, cut out between the ballroom and the Talking Heads exhibition of portraits (thus Kirsten’s appearance). The Painter’s is a delightful place to idle away an hour or so, with cornetto wall lights, a metal skylight that seems like it belongs in the Paris Metro, and an intricately wrapped Deco chandelier hanging above the counter that is as brilliant as Venus in her scallop shell. The new suites upstairs at this hotel were designed by Irish-born Bryan O’Sullivan, who took inspiration from old photographs of a Claridge’s bar of the same name from the 1930s. Other commissions include the Berkeley Bar and The Park Hotel in Kenmare. He worked with artist Annie Morris, whose stack sculptures are now on display at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, but who here drew animals in light grey on the white wall and made a stained-glass window in colours that looked like wrapping paper. This room has elements of the Matisse Chapel as well as Accidentally Wes Anderson (but is anything truly accidental these days?). It’s simple to picture Jean Harlow waiting for her close-up while wearing white mink and blowing smoke rings from a cigarette holder.
Drinks
The menu is separated into four chapters: Light, Interpretations, Complex, and Clean, and it is brought over by bar employees wearing blue painters’ smocks as French electro-pop artists like Kid Loco play on the playlist. The May As Well Be a Negroni, which combines Aecorn Bitter, rooibos, and balsamic vinegar to conjure a convincing Campari-style bitterness, may pique the interest of others. Clean contains zero alcohol, which Gen Xers may wish to completely disregard. The menu, created by Nathan McCarley O’Neil, who arrived here via Dandelyan and New York’s Nomad bar, has a lightness of touch and a lack of showy-offness throughout. It is strewn with herbs, elderflower, and chamomile, as well as French and Italian vermouths and a Provençal peach liqueur called Rinquinquin, which appears in Homage (on Light), a nicely dry, Magistretti, also from the same page, has tarragon and grapefruit in addition to gin and Cocchi, and tastes nearly healthy. The twisted Old Fashioned (Interpretations), a gilded variation that adds brown butter, quince, and tonka to a combination of two whiskies, and the fragrant Saint Remy (Complex), a Martini-style serve with quince again, almond blossom, and vodka, served with a cherry, were two drinks that stood out in particular. On the list of sparkling wines, Gusborne competes with a French crowd while Vicious Circle’s hip Derbyshire fermentation highlights cider’s ever-rising sophistication.
Food
The small menu of European-inspired snacks, which includes beetroot tartare and scampi, is designed to go with the cocktails. The croque monsieur, dusted with black truffle and split into four pieces to resemble a savoury Battenberg Cake, is quite the nicest croque monsieur we’ve seen. The serrano and cheese croquettes drip once bitten, so it’s better to stealthily wolf them down in one behind a handkerchief. Alternately, go back your way and try to get a table at Davies and Brook, Daniel Humm’s Michelin-starred wonder across the lobby.
verdict
This is the prettiest “secret” Mayfair bar, and it can be compared to other hidden treasures in London like Bar Termini in Soho and The Connaught’s Champagne Bar. It is not avant-garde but it is flawlessly impressionist. Scott Jordan
Address: Claridge’s, Brook Street, London W1K 4HR
