10 Best Drinks at London Hotel Bars

Ah, London! As I discovered when my son moved there two years ago, there might be no better place to drink than this city. There are just so many pubs, bars, and taverns here that the odds are stacked in its favor. But while you can thrill to the imaginative concoctions at A Bar With Shapes for A Name or Tayēr + Elementary, for my money, the perfect location to linger over a libation is inside a bonny, old hotel. London’s well-heeled hotel bars are graced with comfortable, classy seating and a relaxed pace, and some of the city’s greatest talents are palming their shakers. Here are my top 10 London hotel drinks of the moment. It’s a martini-heavy list from a martini-loving visitor, but in gin-loving London, that’s the way to go.

Faraway Collins

The Connaught Bar at The Connaught

You might think that The Connaught Bar is only for martinis, but Head Mixologist Giorgio Bargiani and his staff are expert at making any drink, and to start your night or end it, it’s best to order something a bit less boozy but equally transporting. The Faraway Collins fits the bill, for it “tells a story of a journey around the world,” says Bargiani. As with all Collins drinks, it features a spirit, a citrus, a syrup, and a soda. The gin, of course, is local. It comes from Laverstoke, outside London. The yuzu is from Asia, the eucalyptus leaves for the homemade eucalyptus syrup from Australia, and the sarsaparilla root for the soda is sourced from Latin America. Often listed as one of the world’s best bars in publications that go in for that kind of thing, The Connaught Bar serves all of its cocktails from a bar cart in an intimate environs dripping with luxe details: marble cafe tables and floor; green leather, footed banquettes; molded ceiling; mirrors and archways and casement windows. Pace yourself with this refreshed, layered tall drink, and enjoy.

The Vesper

Spy Bar at Raffles at the OWO

Signature Vesper at The Spy Bar Raffles London at The OWO

Britain’s 1906 Old War Office has been turned into the tony Raffles, a hotel where, if you have the bank, you can book a suite where Winston Churchill lost his temper over an ill-conceived strategy during WWII. In the bowels of the grand edifice, agents of the M15 and M16 spy agencies did their dirty work. Here is where Ian Fleming, in his position as a British Naval Intelligence Officer, dreamed up James Bond. Along a corridor in which government snoops were debriefed, two former high-security storage units, Rooms 006 and 007, natch, are now given over to a Bondian activity of a different nature: drinking. You need to make a reservation to enter, but who wouldn’t risk an interrogation to enjoy an ice-cold, perfectly proportioned poison of vodka, gin, and Lillet Blanc in the shadow of Agent 007’s Aston Martin, emerging from the wall behind the bar. The mixologists are as attentive as Miss Moneypenny here; they’ll swap out your warmed glass for a freshly chilled one midway through your sipping.

Martini

Dukes Bar at Dukes Hotel

Dukes Hotel, which is being renovated, is closed until spring 2026, but the legendary bar remains open, for the denizens of St. James must have their martinis, and they must have them properly made: ice-cold, the stemware and the spirit both straight from the freezer, the organic vermouth simply rolled around the inside of the bowl and then expelled before the gin is added, after which an Amalfi lemon is plucked from a big dish of the fruit, which is a centerpiece of the bar, and a long, generous peel is extracted from its skin, expressed over the drink, and propped with its tail hanging over the rim to lend maximum fragrance to an early evening tipple. In their white jackets in a hushed room hung with historical portraiture and graced with royal blue armchairs, head mixologist Alessandro Palazzi and his team do it better than anyone anywhere in the world. That’s why this was Ian Fleming’s favorite watering hole, and why they’re making over 300 of them a night. Only two of them, though, can be yours; after that, the house cuts you off.

Diamante Swizzle

The Lyaness at Sea Containers

Ryan “Mr. Lyan” Chetiyarwadana sure does write a creative menu. The cocktail impressario’s description for the Diamante Swizzle, one of three potato-based libations at the bar he’s created inside the Sea Containers, tells the story of the first marketing ploy for spuds, which were introduced to Europe from South America back in the 16th century. You’ll have to come read it for yourself, but suffice to say it involves armed guards. That’s just the beginning of the fun with the Diamante Swizzle. Concocting this drink is more like cooking. First, potatoes are confit in butter, saffron, and honey. Then they’re whipped up with apricot and a nice, balanced swig of Ford’s Gin before the whole thing is topped off with Laurent-Perrier champagne. Guzzle it from a straw in a big, ole’ glass over chipped ice topped with an herb-leaf garnish and a crimson tangle of fruity angel hair chile and sigh at the incomparable Thames River views out the window.

Paloma

Side Hustle at NoMade London

If you’re with a crowd, the thing to order at the NoMad’s Mexican-themed cantina is a Ritual Cocktail Explosion, one of four super-sized cocktails—not punches, mind you, but garnished drinks served in enormous, cut-glass stemware as if for a giant. They are fitted with a spigot and designed to be shared among six to eight mere mortals. The Painkiller version will numb your whole group. But since you’re probably a traveler to London, chances are you’re flying solo or in a duo or trio. And, for that, you need a more reasonable amount of alcohol. There are foofier drinks here, but the classic Paloma is perfecto. What a gorgeous, rosy concoction it is, with a pink peppercorn–salt rim spilling down the outside of the glass and a huge slice of pink grapefruit curling around the inside, propped in a marriage of three parts Patrón Silver and one part Del Maguey Mezcal for a mildly smoky base that gets blended with agave syrup, grapefruit and lime juices, and the secret to this drink: London Essence Grapefruit Soda. Suck this one down and then seek out that soda at a grocery to drink on its own while you promenade around Picadilly.

Tokyo “Edo” Bay

Sir Frank’s Bar at Beaverbrook Town House

Chelsea is a supremely civilized neighborhood for a pre-dinner elixir. The moody Sir Frank’s is tucked into the Art Deco environs of the Beaverbrook and attached to The Fuji Grill, a very fine spot for Japanese dining three meals a day. Hence, the Japanese porcelain vases behind the backlit bar and the imaginative list of drinks graced with ingredients like lapsang honey and genmaicha tea. The stirred martinis are top of the line. In the gorgeous hue of one of its aromatic ingredients—green chartreuse—the Tokyo “Edo” Bay cocktail, named for Tokyo’s ancient moniker, is precisely poised between sweet and savory. The gin is infused with kombu, which adds not only salinity but extra body. Agave abets the chartreuse to balance out the spirit. But the secret weapon here is cucumber, marinated sunomono style in rice vinegar, sugar, and salt, then shaken with the drink before straining. It’s a savory, drinkable version of something they imagine an old Tokyo Bay sailor might have eaten, albeit with a foofy, crimson tuille as garnish. Prop yourself on a leather-backed barstool and enjoy it along with an order of black cod temaki tacos.

Dante

The Dandy Bar at Mayfair Townhouse

Strolling down Half Moon Street in upscale Mayfair, you’d never suspect that the painted brick fronts of the Georgian town houses that line it are all a façade for the serene, and deceptively large, hotel tucked behind them. With 172 rooms’ worth of visitors to cater to, the mixologists in the ground-floor Dandy Bar need to know they’re doing—and they have historical precedent to live up to, as well. The Victorian-era haunt of bohemians and bachelors, the block is the setting for Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Though the property has partnered with British telly foodie Olly Smith on an excellent lo- and no-fi cocktail list, if you’re to live up to Wilde’s saucy standards, you need to lean back, take a good look at yourself in the bar’s mirrored, coffered ceiling, and understand your need for something potent. Choose the drink named for a bard that well preceded Wilde: Dante. A Vesper, a Sherry Martini, and a Martinez all rolled into one, Dante combines Japanese gin (Nikka Coffey), French vodka (Grey Goose), Spanish dry sherry (Tio Pepe), and Italian sweet vermouth (Cocchi Americano). It’s a worldly concoction for a world-wise drinker like you.

County Hall Martini

Gillray’s at London Marriott Hotel County Hall

Yes, it’s a Marriott, but the steakhouse inside this South Bank hotel is far superior to 99.9 percent of Marriott restaurants worldwide, and while in England, if you’re a carnivore, you have to have at least one great cut of beef, preferrably for Sunday Roast with all the trimmings. The Aberdeen Angus at Gillray’s will do it, with a view of Big Ben across the Thames to boot. What else to wash down an afternoon prime rib than a stiff swallow from the Gin Bar? The marble rail boasts over 100 gins, including the house brand, a collaboration with London’s Rebel Distillers. Take a seat in a tufted Chesterfield armchair beneath the chandeliers in the vaulted room and start with the off-menu County Hall Martini as an aperitif. Barman Nuno Simoes likes his wet and round, so there’s plenty of vermouth in this one, plus half as much DOM Bénédictine for a honeyed saffron note and, for balance, a shot of bittersweet Cynar. Luscious and herbaceous, lifted with orange bitters and bolstered with a misting of absinthe, this golden-hued elixir primes the appetite for Yorkshire pudding and bloody meat.

Gianduja

St. James Bar at the Sofitel London

The brass cafe tables are candlelit. The aquamarine banquettes are pleated velvet. The walls and low ceiling are frescoed. The bar is ablaze with backlit bottles. It’s all very swank, very Deco at one of London’s most ambitious hotel bars. They have a list of cocktails made with vintage spirits, and for newfangled drinks, they often unveil a new, themed menu: “Once in a Lifetime,” “Imagination,” and, most recently, “A Taste of the World.” This one is a boozy Grand Tour, from the Caribbean (Let’s Go Bananas with banana peel–infused rum) to Greece (the cucumber, dill, Hendrix, and mastika Aggouri) to Mexico (a cilantro-and–Ancho Reyes margarita called Taco). But the winning drink eschews sunnier climes for Italy’s mountainous Piemonte, home to the Americano, precursor to the Negroni of which this cocktail is a variation. With its Tanquery No. 10 gin and Solera 1847 cream sherry, the Gianduja is both a very British drink and an Italian one. (Gonzalez Byass may make this particular bottle, but it’s the British who popularized cream sherry.) The sherry tempers the Negroni’s bitterness, but the real treats in the mix are those that give it its name: the chocolate with which the gin is washed and hazelnut essence that’s droppered in. It’s a nightcap and dessert all in one—not in a cloying way, though; more in a packs-a-flavor-punch manner.

Mont Blanc Martini

La Terrasse at Rosewood London

After visits to all these brooding cocktail dens, you need to go outside. The weather is so often inclement in London that, on a nice day, the city celebrates. How better to do that than with a cocktail al fresco near Covent Garden? Rosewood London has partnered with Grey Goose on La Terrasse in the sunny courtyard of its Belle Époque building. Wear your finest summer whites and hide among the greenery on seating upholstered in the vodka brand’s signature blue. With just a touch of vermouth and orange bitters, the Mont Blanc Martini shows off Grey Goose’s high-end Altius vodka, distilled with alpine water and filtered, they say, for smoothness at sub-zero temperatures. But the real reason this order stands out is that it’s more than just a drink. A chic martini should be accompanied by a chic martini snack—something salty and luxe that pairs with the cocktail and also compels you to whet your whistle. This one comes with a unique sidecar: a pair of oysters with mignonette, so you can slurp between sips. And if the London fog does roll in, bringing with it droopy rain? La Terrasse features a retractable roof, so your martini and you both stay dry. Note: Open seasonally, only.