93 Best Nightlife in London, England

This roving West End comedy night group is often considered the best way to see new talent as well as established household names doing "secret" shows. Famous British comedians like Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard, and Russell Brand are among those who have graced an Amused Moose stage, and every summer a handful of the Edinburgh Fringe comedians preview with them. They keep the bar open late (and serve food), and there's a DJ and dancing after the show. Tickets are often discounted with a printout from their website, and shows are mainly on Monday, Wednesday, and weekends.

They don't take reservations at this jewel box of a cocktail bar at The Langham hotel, but you can order a drink while you wait for a chic mirror-top table surrounded by some of London's most beautiful people. The innovative, creative cocktails involve exotic ingredients, like aromatic bitters all the way from Marrakesh, and are simply unforgettable, if pricey. Service is also top-notch, making this a nightlife treat.

The Beaux-Arts-style interior of this enduringly popular subterranean bar just north of Piccadilly Circus is so opulent that you'd be forgiven for thinking it had been here since the 1890s. In fact it's a relatively new revival and has been a hit since it was reconverted in 2012, along with the cavernous Parisian-inspired Brasserie Zédel and the racy Crazy Coqs cabaret, which share the premises. The nifty cocktails cover Pre-Prohibition, Prohibition, and Post-Prohibition standards, with additional special menus on occasion.

In a Georgian mansion house close to Portobello Market, this always-packed bar is distinguishable by its eclectic indoor-outdoor spaces with Gaudí-esque curves and snug corners—like a candlelit fairy-tale grotto, folly, or medieval crypt. Also perfect for an alfresco lunch or intimate dinner, the cocktails here are the star of the show.

Things could hardly get more glamorous than at the Savoy's lesser-known Beaufort Bar—a black-and-gold art deco–inspired spot with dramatic low lighting that specializes in vintage champagne and an enticing spread of heritage cocktails. Dark and sultry, with a rising cabaret stage once graced by Gershwin and Josephine Baker, this venue has nightly live jazz piano music beginning at 7 pm.

A relaxed café, book, and record store by day, and London's leading venue for experimental music by night, Cafe OTO is a Dalston institution. Its programming of free jazz, avant-garde electronica, and much more is enough of a draw that it regularly sells out, with music fans steaming up the windows and spilling out onto the pavement and road outside to smoke during breaks. Café customers are kicked out at 5 pm to make way for sound checks. It's open as a bar (no cover) on nights when no concerts are taking place.

East London’s coolest performing arts venue occupies two huge spaces (one standing, one with unallocated bench seating) in an old art deco movie theater. Original architectural details add to the shabby-hip feel of the place, while in EartH Kitchen, the bar and restaurant on the venue’s second floor, you’ll find Scandi-modern styling (along with delicious cocktails and reasonably priced dishes from a changing roster of pop-up chefs). The wide-ranging and very much on-trend program runs from world music and hip-hop to country, folk, and dance, with stand-up comedy and free sets by leading DJs in the bar.

It's easy to miss the unmarked shabby-chic black door with a scuffed wash of red paint on Chinatown's hectic Gerrard Street main drag, but once you find it and make your way past the sometimes hard-to-please doorman, you'll be in a secret three-floor speakeasy that is also one of London's coolest cocktail joints. With a lively crowd, heavenly cocktails, moody lighting, and a DJ spinning smooth jazz sounds, the vibe is laid-back, sexy, Parisian cool.

Nab a rickety candlelit table in the atmospheric, 1890s, low-slung, brick-vaulted cellar interior of what claims to be the oldest wine bar in London, or sit outdoors in the long pedestrian-only alley garden that runs alongside it. There are no reservations, so be prepared to line up outside during busy periods, like after work and on sunny afternoons. Either way, the mood is always cheery as a diverse crowd sips on more than 70 different wines, ports, and sherries. Tempting cheese and meat plates are great for sharing.

Offering arguably the best light show on any London dance floor, London's first and most famous gay club Heaven is unpretentious, loud, and lively, with a labyrinth of rooms, bars, and live music parlors. Set under the arches at Charing Cross railway station and going strong since 1979, on Thursday through Saturday nights it's all about the G-A-Y club and comedy nights. Check in advance about live performances—they can take place any night of the week. If you go to just one gay club in London, Heaven should be it.

A long-standing hotbed of cool in Camden, the Jazz Café hosts top acts in mainstream jazz as well as hip-hop, funk, world music, soul, and Latin fusion. On Friday nights, DJs sample club music from around the world while on Saturday Soul City nights, DJs play disco, house, and soul. Book ahead if you want a table in the balcony restaurant overlooking the stage; otherwise you'll be standing (and probably dancing).

Once known as the Camden Palace, this legendary venue has lush red decor and gilt-trimmed boxes that recall its past as a Victorian theater, but now is the home of packed dance nights featuring everything from funky house and electronic to club classics and indie, in addition to concerts on the big stage. Headliners who have performed "secret" gigs here include Madonna, Prince, Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Amy Winehouse, while recent gigs range from Angie Stone to Adam Lambert. A renovation following a 2020 fire has added a four-story extension to the original theater and two adjoining buildings, incorporating a good Italian-themed café/pizzeria. A membership gets you access to a cocktail bar in the large roof dome, a summer rooftop bar, an intimate jazz and blues bar, and a recording studio.

On any given night, ace jazz player Trombone Shorty might work his way through this beyond cool New Orleans–meets-Paris cocktail lounge on the second floor of Louie restaurant. Even if Shorty's not there playing that night, the friendly staff dish out deviled eggs, truffle pizzas, and themed cocktails until 2 am five nights a week.

Explorers of all stripes will be captivated by this Jules Verne--inspired cocktail parlor, which is chock-full of the weathered maps, hunting trophies, taxidermy, suspended penny-farthings, and Around the World in 80 Days globe-trotting items of eccentric fictional Victorian British adventurer Phileas J. Fogg. Expect Victorian tipples and gin-based afternoon "Tipsy Teas" from staff in bow ties and other old-fashioned getups.

One of the United Kingdom's most ubiquitous pizza chains also runs an acclaimed jazz venue in Soho. Established in 1976, the dimly lit basement restaurant hosts both established and emerging British and international jazz acts every night, with food and pizzas available about 90 minutes before stage time. The thin-crust pizzas are always popular, but it's the intimate live jazz sets that draw in London's hip jazz aficionados.

Named after a collier ship, this is one of London's oldest riverside pubs, dating to around 1520. Although a regular for Dickens, Pepys, Samuel Johnson, and the American artist James Whistler, once upon a time it was called The Devil's Tavern because of the lowlifes—sailors, smugglers, footpads, and cutthroats—who congregated here. With a 400-year-old flagstone floor and ornamented with pewter ware and nautical objects, this much-loved boozer has a terrace with views of the Thames, from where boat trips often point it out.

Britain's most famous jazz club has attracted the biggest names—from Stan Getz to Ella Fitzgerald—since opening nearby on Gerrard Street in 1959 (moving to its current location in 1965). It's usually dark, hot, and crowded, and thankfully the food and table service are now largely up to par. The ultracool James Bond vibes can't be beat, despite the sad departure of the eponymous founder and saxophonist, Ronnie Scott, who died in 1996. A full program of free-form jazz sets and shows takes place every night, with additional late gigs on Friday and Saturday. Reservations are recommended.

Named after renowned London-born artist and caricaturist Gerald Scarfe (whose work adorns the walls), the Rosewood’s seductively glamorous bar is one part Edwardian gentleman's club to two parts Downton Abbey drawing room. Recline on sofas by a roaring log fire or sink into velvet armchairs and explore the bar's impressive collection of fine wines, cocktails, and spirits (there are more than 180 single malt whiskies alone to choose from). Bar snacks are restaurant-standard dishes, and there's complimentary live music six nights a week.

One seat never looks like the next at this downright extraordinary collection of esoteric living-room bars off Savile Row. The exclusive Parlour, a patisserie during the day, exudes plenty of rarefied charm; the intimate East Bar at the back is reminiscent of a sci-fi film set; the Gallery is a golden-yellow wonderland; and in the Glade it's permanently sunset in an enchanted forest. The space-age dinosaur egg–pod-shaped restrooms are definitely London's quirkiest.

Book ahead to avoid the lines at Soho's top-ranked bar and cocktail lounge on Old Compton Street. Split into two distinct areas, head through the ground-floor aperitivo bar to the infinitely more sexy speakeasy in the basement, where there are lambent brass lamps, antique mirrors, dark red leather booths, and an array of world-class themed cocktails, ranging from a rum-based Josephine Baker to a vermouth and orange bitters–tinged Dita Von Teese.

Since this legendary live music venue opened on Oxford Street in 1942, many of the greats have played here, from swing and jazz stars Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong to punk bands the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Host to the first-ever punk festival in 1976, The 100 Club was saved from closure in 2010 by Paul McCartney, and thankfully the fabled basement venue still rocks and reverberates today to all shades of jazz, blues, funk, ska, and soul.

Festooned with a chin-dropping array of old club ties, vintage celebrity-signed photographs, sporting mementos, model airplanes, and baseball caps, this sensational hotel cocktail bar has superb martinis and Manhattans. The name dates from the 1930s, when hotel bars in London started to cater to growing numbers of Americans crossing the Atlantic on ocean liners. The collection of paraphernalia was started in the 1970s when a customer gifted a small carved wooden eagle.

A step from Blackfriars Tube station, this spectacular pub has an Arts and Crafts interior that is entertainingly, satirically ecclesiastical, with inlaid mother-of-pearl, wood carvings, stained glass, and marble pillars all over the place. Under finely lettered temperance tracts on view just below the reliefs of monks, fairies, and friars, there is a nice group of ales on tap from independent brewers. The 20th-century poet Sir John Betjeman once led a successful campaign to save the pub from demolition.

Chances are you won't have heard of half the ingredients on the cocktail menu at this dark and sultry bar above the Social Eating House, star TV chef Jason Atherton's restaurant, but the sense of mystery only adds to the experience. So, too, do the antique mirrored ceilings and copper-topped bar, the delectable small plates (like black pepper prawn crackers and macaroni and cheese with shaved mushroom)—and the knowledge that you've nabbed a seat at one of the coolest spots in Soho.

On the corner of Greek Street, Soho's most famous pub is as authentic as they come, complete with light oak screens and fittings, spittoon troughs, sturdy bar stools, and sing-alongs around the upright piano. Established in 1840, this was once the haunt for all manner of Soho's finest writers, barflys, poets, and painters—from Lucian Freud to Dylan Thomas. Today, you can still down pints of London Pride beer and drink with the best of Soho's modern-day bohemians.

Before heading off to prime time, some of the United Kingdom's funniest stand-ups cut their teeth here, at what's considered the birthplace of alternative comedy in Britain. The Comedy Store Players, a team with six resident comedians doing improv based on audience suggestions, perform on Sunday; the King Gong open mic and Old Rope sessions showcase new material on Monday; and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday have the best stand-up comedy acts. There's also a bar with food. Note that you must be over 18 to enter.

The walls are platinum silver leaf and everything's all buffed and burnished at this glamorous David Collins--designed 1920s cocktail lounge at The Connaught. Hail the famous martini trolley for a classic dry martini or sip signatures like a Ron Zacapa rum–based Vieux Connaught, which is presented on a mirrored tray with a swirl of saffron smoke.

Read the list of famous ex-regulars, from Charles II and Nell Gwyn to Ernest Hemingway and Dylan Thomas, as you wait for a beer at this smart, comely, and popular 16th-century Thames riverside pub on the Upper Mall towpath in Hammersmith. If—as is often the case—The Dove is too full, stroll upstream along the bank to The Old Ship or The Blue Anchor.

Loved by Londoners and owned by the well-respected St. Peter's Brewery in Suffolk, The Holy Tavern is one-of-a-kind: small, historic, atmospheric, and endearingly eccentric. Antique Delft–style tiles meld with wood and concrete in a converted watchmaker and jeweler's shop dating back to the 18th century. The beer, both bottled and on tap, is some of the best available anywhere in London. It's often busy, especially after work, but is closed on weekends.

This refreshingly ungentrified 17th-century pub was once known as "The Bucket of Blood" because the upstairs room and front yard were used as a ring for winner-takes-all, bare-knuckle fights—a popular form of live entertainment back in the day. Now it's a much friendlier place, serving British food and real ale. It's on the edge of Covent Garden, up a hidden alley off Garrick Street.