Mekane in London

Frith Street's 1959 jazz room — the canonical London jazz club, two sets a night, low ceiling, red lamps

World's 50 Best No.5, two rooms that split the modern London bar in half

The Cut's no-bookings gastropub — what Waterloo eats before the National Theatre

Dean Street's no-music, no-mobiles holdout — the Soho the audience first read about in the 80s

Milroy's reborn under the No. 3 door — Greek Street's whisky merchant and bookcase-speakeasy bar since 1964, rebranded 2024

A 40-cover kitchen-and-natural-wine warehouse under the Bermondsey arches — chef Steve Williams

Shoreditch's whisky reference — 250 bottles, no cocktails, a single felled-oak table

Wentworth Street's unmarked basement — the City fringe speakeasy that does not need a velvet rope

Hoxton Square's basement — the small, no-fuss cocktail room the trade has booked since 2010

Michael and Charlotte Sager-Wildeve's Hackney Road wine bar — the East London natural-wine reference since 2013

Tom Conran's 1995 gastropub — Guinness, oysters and the upstairs dining room that started the Notting Hill genre

A 1708 Chelsea pub on a quiet Lawrence Street corner, ranked among the UK's Top 50 Gastropubs

The Gladwin Brothers' Old Church Street pub — Sussex-vineyard wines and a tight British seasonal menu