restaurant
Andrew Edmunds
Soho
28 September, 2018
A love of wine is the most refined of guilty pleasures - or perhaps the most noble of rots. There's a strange magic in the way a simple meal can be elevated to something memorable by the tender embrace of the grape, and how a mouthful can instantly transport you to the banks of the Rhone Valley or sunny California. London is a global centre of wine and food culture, so whether you want to crow over a Meursault or go toe-to-toe with a young Brooklyn Chardonnay, behind the whitest of tablecloths or simply over olives in a jolly basement bar, we've prepared a selection of London's most interesting wine-focussed bars, restaurants and bottle shops for you to try out.
restaurant
Soho
bar
Mayfair
bar
Chelsea
bar
Charing Cross
bar
South Kensington
bar
Leicester Square
bar
Hackney
bar
Brixton
bar
Clapton
bar
Stoke Newington
restaurant
Hackney
What happens when you gut a grotty old pub and replace it with an atmospheric and urban-chic wine bar? Sager + Wilde, duh. You'll drink from the very extensive list of premium and rare wines by the reasonably priced glass while admiring the interior decor, which is essentially a cornucopia of early 20th-century industrial remnants brought together with lashings of wood and glass. The menu at the Hackney bar is a brilliant collection of moreish wine-friendly fare (think cheese boards, sharing plates of charcuterie and upmarket toasties). There is also a darkly inviting restaurant on Paradise Row which takes the concept into a full format and whose wine list is stuffed with lesser-known producers from across the world.
bar
Hackney
bar
London, United Kingdom
bar
Bermondsey
bar
Dalston
Address
85 Dalston Lane E8 2NG
bar
Soho
Hidden among Soho's maze-like backstreets, this speakeasy-style wine bar can be found behind an assuming doorway, demarcated only by a pig-shaped door knocker. Above its foodie counterpart, Jason Atherton's Michelin-starred restaurant Social Eating House, The Blind Pig serves wine by the glass or bottle in seductive, candlelit, wood-swathed interiors. If you're feeling adventurous, cast an eye over the cocktail menu to choose an extravagant tipple inspired by children's literature. Our favourite is Mr Tumnus's Tumnus Tipple Delight, a gin-based cocktail topped with Lanique rose, white chocolate, citrus, egg white and vanilla finished with an ice shard.