Hot new London bar openings

Coupettte

Chris Moore, the former head bartender of Beaufort Bar has launched a new venture on the site of The Albion pub in Bethnal Green. Inspired by the French focus on local ingredients, Coupette shines a light on lesser-known regional drinks, from Calvados to Normandy cider. Sourcing from both the UK and France, the bar serves modern twists on classic French spirits, while the menu is designed around the six borders of France, known as the ‘French hexagon’.

Drinks include Apples, featuring Calvados and carbonated cold-pressed apple juice; a Truffled White Negroni, and the Champagne Piña Colada (pictured), which is fast becoming a modern classic. We’ve got our eye on the Just For Clarity, made with Grey Goose, beurre noisette, fino Sherry and toasted hazelnut bitters.

French fancies include confit duck leg with orange glazed salsify, and chicken liver parfait with crispy skin and seasonal chutney. The bar also offers a selection of French wines with a focus on natural and organic drops, and uses sweet wine, Sherry and vermouth in many of the cocktails.

The Wigmore

Having recently revealed a love of street food to db, Michel Roux Jr has branched out from his fine dining roots with the opening of a London pub. Billed as a ‘traditional English tavern’, The Wigmore is housed within The Langham hotel with an entrance on Regent Street. In keeping with the hotel’s interiors, the pub has an Art Deco feel with emerald banquettes, table lamps and a giant chandelier forming the focal point of the room.

Roux is in charge of the food offering while the team at the hotel’s award-winning Artesian bar have created the drinks. Among the comforting classics are ox cheek and ale pie, cauliflower kedgeree, crab on buttered crumpets and a masala spiced Scotch egg. To drink, expect several cask ales and craft beers including a house brew made by Bermondsey’s Brew By Numbers, beer-infused ‘hoptails’, punches and a selection of wines.

Mint Gun Club

Stoke Newington has not only been treated to the world’s best pizza restaurant in Da Michele, it has also been chosen as the home of adorable new tea house, bar and deli the Mint Gun Club. Run by former Milk & Honey head bartender Richard Hunt, the bar is inspired by Hunt’s childhood spend in far-flung lands, while interiors have a stripped back Scandinavian feel splashed with exotic touches like Moroccan tiling and Polynesian artefacts.

During the day you can sip rare teas from all over the world served with Turkish delight, cucumber sarnies, almond hummus with rose harissa and chargrilled aubergine.

At night you’ll find stronger sips like the Penzance Gimlet, made with gin, fennel, chamomile, honeysuckle and Manuka honey; the Star of Nicosia, which blends dry vermouth, fig juice, mastiha and nocarella olives; and the Milanese Nightingale, that marries Aperol, gooseberry and bramble wine, elderflower liqueur, neroli and sweet orange flower.

Dickie’s Bar

Irish chef Richard Corrigan has opened a cocktail bar at his eponymous Mayfair restaurant in collaboration with mixologist Gregory Buda from The Dead Rabbit. Dickie’s Bar serves seasonal cocktails laced with tinctures made with ingredients from Corrigan’s private farm in Ulster. Playing on Corrigan’s Dublin roots and the bar’s London location, Irish whiskey and English gin are given top billing, while the highball serve reigns supreme.

Among the cocktails on offer are the Irish Whisky & Strawberry, made wirh Connemara Peated Irish Whiskey, house strawberry soda, Ramazzoti Amaro and clove; the Scotch & Coriander, fusing Glenmorangie 10 yr Scotch, Merlet Creme de Poire, coriander, orange bitters and house soda, and the sweet and juicy Gin & Blackberry, a mix of Plymouth Gin, house blackberry soda, black cardamom and smoked black pepper. The menu is laid out like a storybook telling the tale of Dickie’s Bar.

Humble Grape Islington

Having started life with a small but perfectly formed wine bar in Battersea, the Humble Grape team has expanded the brand with a new site in Islington for the hat-trick, after the opening of a cavernous space on Fleet Street earlier this year.

The latest venture features a bar, a foliage filled dining room, wine shop and wine library packed with dusty tomes and filled with beautiful reclaimed furniture. Serving over 400 minimum intervention wines, mostly from single vineyards, you can read about the characters who craft the wines on the bar’s ‘winemaker wall’.

On the food front, expect the likes of diver-caught scallops with Laverstock farm black pudding and crispy leeks; confit pork belly with celeriac and apple remoulade; and burrata with purple sprouting broccoli, pumpkin seeds and basil oil.

Sibarita

Spanish wine bar Sibarita has swing into town and is making waves in Covent Garden. The tiny, 26-seater site has its focus firmly on fun.

In the kitchen you’ll find head chef Krisztian Palinkas serving up Spanish and Catalan classics and deli treats like calamares a la Roman’ with alegria pepper and toasted coriander; chicken chilindron with crispy Serrano ham; and oven-baked torta del casar cheese with garlic bread. Wines run the gamut from entry-level to pricey drops from Priorat to pair with local Spanish cheeses and nutty hams from acorn fed pata negra pigs.

Among the wine highlights are Cavas from Gramona and Raventos i Blanc; Cillar de Silos Rosado from Ribera del Duero; Telmo Rodriguez’ Gaba do Xil Godello and mountain white from Malaga; J Palacios Petalos from Bierzo; L’Ermita from Priorat and Lopez de Heredia Tondonia 2003.

Bar Termini Centrale

Cocktail guru Tony Conigliaro has opened a sister site to his popular apéritivo haunt, Bar Termini in Soho. Located in trendy Marylebone, Bar Termini Centrale is a collaboration between Conigliaro and Marco Arrigo – head of quality at Illy coffee.

Inspired by Italy’s old station cafés, the bar serves coffee by day and cocktails by night alongside a selection of cicchetti (Italian small plates), from beef carpaccio and smoked octopus carpaccio to Italian cheeses.

Among the new drops exclusive to Termini Centrale are an olive Bellini and a bottle-aged bergamot Negroni, while Termini classics like the Spritz Termini, made wth gin, rhubarb cordial, Prosecco and Aperol, the Terroir and bottle-aged Negronis all make a cameo.

Nine Lives

New London Bridge bar Nine Lives shines a light on closed loop cocktails that use every part of an ingredient rather than discarding things like lime husks. Lemons piths are redistilled for their essential oil to be used in liqueurs and soaps, with the compost going to the bar’s herb garden.

Housed in a Victorian basement in Bermondsey prettified with Chinese lanterns and lashings of wood, among the signature sips are the Two of the Moby Dick, made with coconut oil-washed grain whisky and salt caramel syrup; and the Omu Kooler, featuring Campari with watermelon and cucumber. Nine Lives has the same ethos for its food offering, making the most of its ingredients to minimise waste.

The Clifton

Having stood vacant for three years, The Clifton pub in St John’s Wood has reopened rather than be turned into a private residence, much to the delight of local residents.

Said to be a favourite haunt of Edward VII and his mistress Lillie Langtry, New Zealand born chef Karl Calvert of The Providores fame serves up comfort food classics like haggis sausage rolls with Famous Grouse ketchup, mutton rendang croquettes with banana raita; and sweetcorn jalapeno fritters with chipotle onion jam.

Calvert also shines a light on underappreciated cuts of meat like like pork neck and ox heart, while the pub champions craft beer.