Hot new London bar openings: August

Rum Kitchen Brixton

Rum Kitchen has ventured south, opening a third site in Brixton. Alongside the beach shack-inspired menu, new dishes at the Coldharbour Lane joint include a jerk fried chicken burger and grilled red snapper with avocado salsa.

Rum nuts have over 200 expressions and 40 cocktails to work their way through including classics like the Dark & Stormy, Rum Sour, Mai Tai and Zombie, and new creations like the Smoked Daiquiri, which blends Smoked Bacardi Heritage rum, lime, grapefruit and apricot; and the Guayanese Iced Tea featuring El Dorado 5 Year Old, cider, Aperol, lime, bergamot and Earl Grey & peppermint syrup.

Old Street Records 

Music and drinks go together like macaroni and cheese, so the clever founders of Old Street Records have decided to open a hybrid cocktail bar/record shop. It’s actually their third site, joining sister venues Venn St. Records in Clapham and Northcote Records in Battersea. The bar has hooked up with two labels – Fiction Records and Caroline International to sell tracks by their artists.

Expect to see vinyl records by Iggy Pop, Tame Impala, Nick Mulvey, The Maccabees, Ian Brown, Mystery Jets and Supergrass frontman Gaz Coombes for sale at the bar alongside craft beer and cocktails, with pizzas available to mop up the booze. Old Street Records also hosts live music acts six nights a week, giving everything from soul and funk to rock and pop the limelight.

Four Sisters Townhouse

This pretty bar with wacky pink wallpaper and Tiffany lamps is an unexpected addition to St Paul’s. Joining sister site, Four Sisters Bar in Islington, the Dickensian-themed Four Sisters Townhouse serves cocktails designed to “excite, educate and delight”. The tiny bar has bags of character, and is part boudoir part Victorian gentleman’s club with low ceilings, wood panelling, leather chairs and trinkets taken from around London.

A raised seating area, called “the study”, gives drinkers a place to ponder over which tipple to try next. The seasonally focused selection changes weekly, and has previously featured the likes of the Beetnick, made with gin, beetroot-infused Sherry, granny smith apple and cucumber water, which can be necked with British bites. Expect it to be rammed during the week and quiet at weekends, when the suits flock home to the country.

The Blue Bar at The Berkeley 

One of the capital’s prettiest bars, the Blue Bar at The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, has been made over. The brainchild of the late, great David Collins, the bar recently reopened after a six-month revamp by his protégé Robert Angell.

Staying respectful to the original design and colour scheme, among the new features is a glass pavilion created by Richard Rogers, wood panelling painted in the bar’s signature “Lutyens” blue hue, and an eye-catching blue bar topped with onyx. Furniture comes courtesy of Robert Angell while fabrics are the work of Irish textile designer Jude Cassidy.

To mark the makeover, bar manager Rashid Ghuloom has curated a list of cocktails grouped by their colour: green, yellow, red and blue. Among them is the Big Smoke, which blends smoked Tapitio Tequilla, lime, aloe vera and agave; and the Smoke and Mirrors, featuring rye whiskey, Benedictine, toasted cinnamon, rosehip and Madeira.

Hyde

Kensington newcomer Hyde opposite Kensington Palace is fronted by the co-founder of The Cocktail Trading Company, Andy Mil, who has had fun with the drinks list, serving libations in everything from smoking teapots to giant shells.

The Mad Hatter features Bombay Sapphire, ginger and lemon juice, while sharing cocktail the Shell Shock, delivered in a giant ceramic sea shell, blends Bacardi Negra, Bacardi Superior, pineapple juice and the bar’s own caramel and coconut mix.

Bar bites are pan-Asian in nature and include the likes of plum miso-marinated sea bass, and duck and watermelon salad with cashews and Thai herbs. The walls meanwhile, are adorned with artworks by tattoo artist JJ Adams.

By Appointment Only 

By Appointment Only is a new bar concept housed within the Bathhouse in Bishopsgate; a hidden haunt harking back to Victorian London, which served as a Turkish baths during the 19^th century. The venue has kept many of its original features, from the blue Arabic tiles on its roof and oriental rugs to stained glass windows and a marble bar.

Cocktails have an exotic feel, with spirits infused at the bar in ornate decanters and Kilner jars filled with fruit. Among the in-house infusions on offer are plum gin, and lavender and rosemary gin, while aged bottled cocktail the Lost City of Z blends coconut, almond-infused rum and pineapple, which can be enjoyed with gin-cured salmon and prawns with Bloody Mary mayo.

London Cocktail Club Bethanal Green 

There seems to be no stopping the London Cocktail Club. With four thriving venues across town, its latest site in Bethnal Green has a distinctly grungy feel. Serving up the group’s signature cocktails, the biker-themed bar is set across two floors filled with black leather sofas and green velvet.

Popular classics like the Bacon & Egg Martini, made with Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 infused with bacon, maple syrup, orange bitters and lemon juice, will be back. Also on pour will be the Won Ton Bomb formed of Red Bull jelly on a spoon served with chilled Jägermeister and a touch of Tabasco; and the Bump & Grind, made with Stoli salted caramel vodka, Tia Maria and an house coffee mix shaken hard and served chilled.

The Great Chase Bar

Popping up over the summer is the Great Chase Bar at upmarket west London chippie Kensington Place. Around until 3 September, the Union Jack laden bar, in collaboration with Chase Distillery in Herefordshire, features eight bespoke British cocktails.

Signature sip The Great Chase features Chase vodka, Chase elderflower liqueur, soda water and lemon juice, while the Mar-tea-ni, served in a china tea cup, blends Chase rhubarb vodka, Chase elderflower liqueur, Earl Grey tea, elderflower cordial and rhubarb bitters.

Those in seek of a punchier drop should try the Smoky Mary, which marries Chase smoked vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, celery salt. Snacks on offer to complement the cocktails include mini jars of brown shrimp, Devon crab, and prawns with Marie Rose sauce.

Bar Douro

Max Graham of Churchill’s Port is to open a Bar Douro, a Portuguese restaurant and wine bar in Flat Iron Square near London Bridge this September. Inspired by the ale houses and tapas bars dotted around Lisbon and Porto, the venue will serve small plates based on Portuguese home cooking alongside a selection of Ports and Portuguese wines from the country’s key growing regions.

Its décor will include Portugal’s famous ‘azulejos’ – blue and white ceramic tiles. Graham, whose father Johnny founded Churchill’s Port in 1981, tested the water with Churchill’s Port House, an eight-month pop-up wine bar in Soho in 2013.

El Pastor 

Sam and Eddie Hart, the brothers behind Barrafina and Quo Vadis, are to open El Pastór, a taqueria in London Bridge this November. Taking pride of place at El Pastór, meaning shepherd in Spanish, will be an upright grill that will be used to make meat, fish and veggie tacos.

In addition, the restaurant will serve seafood tostadas, chicharrón del queso and chargrilled esquites. Mezcal will be given top billing on the drinks list and will be served neat with a slice of orange to sweeten the blow. Tequila, Mexican beer and Margaritas bump up the drinks offering.

New rum bar by The Breakfast Group

The Breakfast Group is to open a cavernous 1920s-themed rum bar in Mayfair this September celebrating Cuba’s most storied spirit. The Duke Street haunt was due to be called The Plantation but announced over the weekend that it is to change its name following an online petition given its negative connotations and associations with slavery. Hoping to encapsulate Havana’s heyday via colonial interiors, cocktails will have a vintage feel while sharing dishes are inspired by the Caribbean islands and include molasses glazed pork ribs and edible grasshoppers.

Taking centre stage within the venue will be a “Grand House” veranda that can seat up to 40 guests, while a Havana-inspired barber shop called the “Sipping Salon” will double as a lounge area. The bar will boast over 200 different expressions of rum, alongside cachaça, rhum agricole and mezcal. Signature cocktails include the Mary’s Pickled, Grasshopper Deluxe and Daiquiris made with sugar that’s hand-pressed on site.