The 22 best wine bars in London
Wine bars are lovely places; calmer than the pub, more relaxed than a cocktail bar and full of interesting bottles of the good stuff. Gone are the days when they were looked on as being pretentious or snobby – now everyone can agree that, when you're after tasting some delicious vintages in lovely surrounds, a wine bar is hard to beat (it certainly beats cheap, synthetic and overly warm pub wine any day).
Wine bars are a delightful place to end a long day, as they are often lit by twinkling candles and soft lighting, making them instantly cocooning and welcoming. But more than that, there's simply no better way to get to grips with new grapes, producers and wine styles. The staff have endless knowledge and have done the work to curate menus filled with interesting, reliable or exciting bottles, depending on what you're after. Rather than committing to a bottle of something you've been wondering about, a wine bar offers you the chance to try them by the glass (sometimes even smaller measures) so you can find new favourites and expand your knowledge. As for food, most wine bars serve excellent charcuterie and cheese boards and what's not to love about that?
The best wine bars in London
1/22La Compagnie Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden
Neal's Yard is home to this wine bar, run by the same team behind the popular and successful Experimental Cocktail Clubs across major cities worldwide. This was their first foray into wine and is more elegant than its cocktail-serving cousins. The sommelier team scours the globe for original wines made by small producers, staying away from mainstream wines that are available in so many establishments, though big hitters such as Petrus and Chateau Margaux do appear on the menu.
Anton Rodriguez2/22Luna, Shad Thames
Tucked within the cobbled streets of Shad Thames, Luna is the soulful younger sister to Italian restaurant Legare, which stands opposite. Striking the balance between relaxed and refined, the wine bar and restaurant is run by experienced restaurateur and Legare founder Jay Patel, alongside Matt Beardmore (ex-Trullo and head chef/co-founder at Legare). So you can trust that you are in safe hands…
We opted to follow our server’s lead on our visit (a decision we do not regret), beginning with a glass of Can Sumoi, Ancestral Montonega - a floral sparkling wine from the high altitudes of Penedès. Its tartness made it the perfect aperitif, effortlessly enhancing our first plate of chorizo, manchego and spicy pepper - a dish that offered just the right amount of heat to contrast beautifully with the wine’s vibrancy. Alongside this, the fluffiest potato bread rolls imaginable arrived, served with cultured butter that was dreamily salty and silky.
Raw Cornish sea bream arrived next, delicately dressed with tarragon and sliced Vignola cherry. Paired with a fragrant glass of natural orange wine, this was a winning combination boasting freshness in flavour. Other highlights included a nostalgic yet elevated dish of fried chicken with curry leaves. Crispy, juicy and aromatic, paired with biodynamic and organic Zinnkoepflé - perfectly balancing the richness of the dish.
Head here for exceptional ingredients and thoughtful pairings that dance against pared-back interiors, warm lighting, and on-point service, creating both an intimate and effortlessly cool feel. - Diya Pandey
Paul Rogers3/22Rockwell Bistro & Wine Bar
Trafalgar Square finally has a decent place to get a properly good glass of wine in the form of the Rockwell Bistro and Wine Bar. Part of the Trafalgar St. James hotel, the bar is on the ground floor and a truly lovely place to find yourself, all curved booths, subtly shining surfaces and soft velvets. It is warm, welcoming and they don't put a foot wrong when it comes to food. The menu is full of small bites to share, with certain accompanied by a wine pairing suggestion. Everything is well-balanced, perfectly seasoned and feels decadent without being heavy.
Wine is where they shine and there is an extensive menu of enticing options, as well as some serious knowledge on the team to help you get through the selection. A Coravin system means many top shelf bottles are on offer by the glass and keep an eye out for their regular wine tasting evenings that focus on different regions and producers each time.
- 4/22
Bar Levan, Peckham
If natural wine and moreish small plates are your thing, this is the spot for you. Bar Levan is a buzzing local wine bar which - if you aren’t lucky enough to live in walking distance of it - you will probably consider moving for (or at least, getting on the train to Peckham Rye, which is conveniently 30 seconds walk away). The wine list is extensive and varied, and includes a delightful orange Trebbiano from Veneto which is best enjoyed sitting at one of the street-facing tables in the sun while jazz records play inside. The ever-changing menu of inventive small plates is also something to get excited about — think miso devilled eggs, pickled red mullet and creamy burrata with borage and mousseron mushrooms. If you fancy something more substantial, stumble into its sister restaurant, Levan, which is just next door and serves a delicious array of Modern European delights.
5/22Noble Rot, Bloomsbury/Mayfair
“There's no room for any kind of wine-wankery here" is something of a mantra for Noble Rot, whose three branches in Mayfair, Soho and Bloomsbury are perhaps best known as wine-led restaurants rather than wine bars. Nonetheless the Bloomsbury and Mayfair branches do have dedicated, walk-in only bar spaces, and there are few places out there that can compete for the range, quality and inventiveness of the wines on offer. Come for affordable under-the-radar wines or barnstormers from legendary names – you'll leave delighted either way. The bars are great places to eat as well as drink, with a set lunch menu plus bar food in the evenings (think oysters, gougères and confit duck leg).
Helen Cathcart6/22Farm Shop, Mayfair
Artfarm, the hospitality group owned by Manuela and Iwan Wirth of Hauser & Wirth, is behind some of our favourite hotels and restaurants in the UK, including The Fife Arms in the Cairngorms and Mount St restaurant in Mayfair. Just down the road, they have also opened the splendid Farm Shop, which sells seasonal produce from Durslade, their own farm in Somerset, as well as other goods from independent makers. The shop is an excellent reason in itself to visit, but head downstairs and you'll find a seriously stylish wine bar, serving ‘Maid of Bruton’ wines from Durslade alongside a list of other well-chosen bottles. The ‘Maid of Bruton’ sparkling rosé is dangerously drinkable.
In addition, the bar serves a food menu of tempting charcuterie and cheese (many produced in Durslade's environs in south-west England), plus more substantial dishes like Vacherin Mont d’Or and Steak Tartare. The atmosphere is deeply cool, but surprisingly for Mayfair, it's not an excessively pricey place , with wine by the glass starting at £4.50 for 125ml. If you're in the neighbourhood, it's the perfect place for a pitstop, and we defy you not to be tempted to take something home from the shop upstairs.
7/22Ploussard, Clapham
How lucky the residents of Clapham are to have this as a neighbourhood wine bar and restaurant. Named after a French grape varietal found in the Jura region, Ploussard is a small and understatedly stylish spot offering seasonal sharing plates and low-intervention wines. We tried a bottle of white Burgundy from Sylvain Pataille that showed off all the elegance and minerality of its origin.
The sophisticated food makes it a destination for dinner as well as drinks: try the savoury madeleine with a moreish comté & onion custard to dip it in, a delicate crab tartlet that's difficult not to wolf down in one go, and a heartier dish of saddleback sausage and smoked potato.
8/22Cave Cuvée
Some of the best wine bars are linked to wine shops, and Cave Cuvée is key amongst these. Underneath Top Cuvée – a forward-thinking purveyor in Bethnal Green – is this dinky but delightful wine bar, where natural, organic, biodynamic and all around modern wines are the name of the game. Where other wine bars and calm and collected, Cave Cuvée has a little more spirit; think disco ball and accompanying tunes. It's young, fresh and putting a very new spin on the concept.
9/22Humble Grape
Sustainability is at the fore of Humble Grape, who have expanded over the years from one bar to five across London. Their ethos is that they love wine, and want you to too, but with an eco-friendly mindset when it comes to the bottles and producers they choose to highlight. What this means in practice is that you'll find only wines from 100% sustainable producers, exclusive to Humble Grape. As goes with such territory (or terroir, to be a wine-o), the vast majority will be biodynamic and organic in their systems. The same goes for the food suppliers they work with, so you can pop into Humble Grape for a glass and a gobble and leave knowing your carbon footprint is as low as can be.
10/22Passione Vino, Shoreditch
Passione Vino has been operating in the UK since 2003, set up by Luca Dusi and Federico Bruschetta initially as a distributor of small, artisanal Italian wines. Since 2013 they have had a shop and wine bar in a quiet street in Shoreditch, and it's one of our favourite places to buy and drink wine. The place is an Aladdin's cave of Italian wine, full of unusual bottles and unexpected delights. It's a lively place, decorated with bright floral wallpaper and the portraits of the producers whose wine is stocked in store. If you stop in for a drink, you'll find friendly service and a menu of 'proper Venetian grandma's' food that is deeply satisfying.
11/22Next Door Records, Shepherd's Bush
The Uxbridge Road is home to this on trend record shop, café and wine bar, where the bottles on offer are all natural and the music makes it a lively neighbourhood spot. Run by three guys, it's a relaxed place to try all manner of interesting wines and discover more than just a new favourite producer while you're there.
12/22Bar Crispin, Soho
A welcome addition to the hustle and bustle of Kingly Street, Bar Crispin is, in a word, buzzy. With 80s-chic interiors by Jermaine Gallacher, including his signature zig zags and plaster pendants by Viola Lanari, we'd come for the design alone, but the wine and the food are very very good. It's an all-natural wine bar, but that doesn't mean funky, cloudy vintages here; everything we tried was graceful and elegant, set off by a clever food menu of small and large plates. Tuck into a plate of oysters or anchovy and potato focaccia with your wine, and settle in for a satisfying evening.
13/22Peckham Cellars
A delightful place to stop on the Queen's Road (aka the Peckham Riviera), this restaurant, wine bar and bottle shop is just another reason to check out SE London's flourishing food scene. There are over 100 bottles in stock, and a compact seating area (plus more seats outside) where you can pull up a chair for drinks, nibbles, brunch or a light dinner.
GRANT ROONEY PREMIUM / Alamy Stock Photo14/22Antidote, Soho
Antidote opened way back in 2011 as one of the earlier venues to prioritise natural and organic wine in London, and remains an excellent place to stop for a drink and a bite to eat – the perfect escape from Oxford Street shopping. There's a small outdoor seating area where you can watch Soho go by, or hop up onto one of their window counter seats and enjoy the same from indoors. A menu of cheese and charcuterie accompanies the selection of low-intervention wines, and upstairs is a shop so you can pick up a bottle of what you loved best to take home.
15/22The Mulwray, Soho
On the ever popular Rupert Street by Piccadilly Circus, The Blue Posts pub stands out like a beacon. While it certainly catches the eye, many don't know that the basement houses a wonderful restaurant, Evelyn's Table, while the first floor is home to wine bar, The Mulwray. With windows on one side and a glass fronted cabinet filled with bottles on another, it has the atmosphere of a speakeasy, with dark wood and inky blue velvet banquettes. The wine list – curated by Honey Spencer – is made up of fine wines and natural options, full of exciting grapes and regions that you may never have heard of. With a small selection of food on offer (think charcuterie and nibbles like olives) and a lot of wines to try, you could easily spend far too long in its cosseting surrounds.
Ben Peter Catchpole / Alamy Stock Photo16/22Wine Rooms, Brackenbury/Kensington
Where a lot of wine bars tend to be tiny and intimate, these two west London bars are positively abundant and spacious, with the Brackenbury village branch well supplied with outdoor seating for long summer nights spent sipping rosé. Both bars are notable for their extensive Enomatic ranges, which mean that you can try (self-service style) lots of small glasses of different wines, and only commit to a bottle if you find one you love. It's a fun, informal way to experiment with different styles – go for a first date as you're guaranteed to have something to talk about.
17/22Furanxo, Dalston
This tiny sliver of a shop manages to make a lot of its square footage. Furanxo is a deli, wine shop, charcuterie purveyor and wine bar that specialises in Spanish fare. Every week, they post a picture of six bottles on their instagr account, alerting thirsty locals to the wines on offer by the glass that week. They are always from Spain and always spot on.
18/22Diogenes the Dog, Elephant & Castle
Anyone keen to discover interesting new wines from regions that aren't so well known globally should make for Elephant and Castle's Diogenes the Dog. Owner Sunny picks terroirs that you may not have heard of and countries that are just becoming internationally recognised and celebrates their crus in his wine bar. Polish, Welsh and Texan wines all come to the fore, and Sunny buys much of his stock directly from producers he knows personally.
19/2210 Cases, Covent Garden
With over 300 wines on offer, 10 Cases has a huge selection. One side of the premises is a cave à vin, dedicated to selling bottles (which you can drink there for a £12 corkage fee on top of the retail price), while the other side is a bistrot, dishing up hearty fare that demands to be washed down with a fine vintage. The cave side is also a wine bar and as well as offering corkage on all the bottles available for purchase, they also serve a selection of delicious wines by the glass.
20/22Bottles, Spitalfields
Bottles has been making quite a name for itself since opening in Spitalfields Market by Liverpool Street. The focus is primarily on Italian wines, with a particular bias towards sustainable, independent, organic & bio-dynamic producers. Each wine is handpicked to create a unique menu of Italian specialities, alongside an eclectic world-wide selection.
21/22The Winemakers Club, Farringdon
This industrial style bar is distinctly hip in its design. Housed under brick arches, the tables and chairs are all wood and empty bottles with lit candles line the walls. The team here are connoisseurs of wines produced in a minimal way, focusing on organic and biodynamic producers.
22/22La Cave, Holborn
Set underneath the bustling Hoxton hotel in Holborn, La Cave is a masterclass in how to do a wine bar right. It's buzzing without being overwhelmingly noisy; it feels at once intimate and like a party. The drinks menu is focused on interesting, low intervention wines from small independent suppliers so even the biggest wine boffins are in for a night of discovery. On the food side of things, pop up chefs will be coming in and out on month-long residencies. Try get a table at the bar so you can see the chefs work, it's a spectacle that isn't to be missed.
Comments
Back to Top
