Best Mayfair bars for cocktails and late-night drinks

Top cocktail bars in Mayfair

With some of the best bars in the world, London’s drinking scene offers everything from old-school haunts mixing up classics to proper ales at cosy pubs and innovative watering holes full of surprises. Here’s our pick of the very best bars in Mayfair to raise a glass or two.

The Wine Bar at Farm Shop

If you didn’t know there was a rustic wine bar beneath one of Mayfair’s best farm shops, now you do. This candle-lit haven is everything you want from a bar; a laid-back vibe, big wooden tables and shelves stacked with the good stuff. Even better, you definitely won’t go hungry - there’s huge sharing platters to order, all groaning with cheese and meat from the counter upstairs, including chicken from the in-house rotisserie.

Location: 64 S Audley St, London W1K 2QT

The Barley Mow

One of Mayfair’s best pubs, The Barley Mow is a relaxed place to pull up a bar stool and kick back with friends with a pint or glass of wine, watching the world go by from its etched-glass window. You’ll want to order off the bar menu - think duck and wild garlic Scotch eggs and homemade sausage rolls - or skip upstairs to the restaurant for grilled Cotswolds chicken or Brixham fish, making room for the lemon meringue pie.

Location: The Barley Mow, 82 Duke Street, Mayfair, London W1K 6JG 

The Audley Public House

The Audley Public House is a scrubbed-up kind of pub, with a 200-year-old history but modern feel (Artfarm was behind its revival, the hospitality company responsible for The Fife Arms). You’ll love its restored wood panelling and the specially commissioned artworks that adorn the walls, not to mention that psychedelic ceiling by artist Phyllida Barlow. Expect great draft beers, silky Guinness and crisp ciders, with legendary Sunday lunches and mooreish snacks like London rarebit and coronation crab on toast.

Location: 41-43 Mount St, London W1K 2RX 

Comptoir Café and Wine

Café by day, wine bar by night, it’s little wonder Comptoir Café and Wine is a secret watering hole of Mayfair locals who want posh tipples washed down with a lively atmosphere. Firstly, it has master sommelier Xavier Rousset at its helm, formerly of Michelin-starred Texture – so the wine list is expertly curated. People don’t just come for the wine either, there’s always tempting small plates - from antipasti boards to croque monsieurs and Lancashire toasties.

Location: 21-22 Weighhouse St, London W1K 5LU

Le Magritte Bar and Terrace

Sometimes you want a bar that makes life feel more glamorous than it really is and Le Magritte Bar and Terrace at the Beaumont hotel is just that. Everything gleams - the polished cherrywood wood panelling, the leather-edged granite counter and clubby chairs, not to mention the service, which is old-fashioned, slick and smart. Order an Empire of Light cocktail (suitably smoky and spicy) followed by half a dozen oysters and sit back and enjoy the feeling of time slowing down.

Location: The Beaumont, 8 Balderton St, Brown Hart Gardens, London W1K 6TF

Mr Fogg’s Apothecary

If you’re after something a little different, you won’t find a more exciting spot than Mr Fogg’s Apothecary on Brook Street. Inspired by the Around the World in 80 Days adventurer Phileas J Fogg, this wonderfully eccentric Mayfair bar is stocked to the rafters with his extensive apothecary collection, where the team will prescribe, formulate, measure out and dispense the perfect cocktail serves that will smoke, flame, pop - and everything in between.

Location: Basement, 34 Brook St, London W1K 5DH 

The Connaught Bar

It’s hard not to fall head-over-heels for the Art Deco style of the Connaught Bar, a dazzling spectacle of style and glamour in a quiet, luxury sort of way. Beautiful panelling, silver leaf, ornate ceilings and big plush leather seating, this is a place that invites you to indulge - whether that’s with a glass of champagne or a martini, wheeled up to you and shaken up atop the famous martini trolley. For this is the Connaught way, of course. 

Location: Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1K 2AL 

The Red Room at The Connaught

If a chic space hidden behind a velvet-lined doorway with a dazzling pink onyx bar and red-themed artwork by four female visionaries sounds like your kind of bar, you’ll love it at The Red Room at The Connaught. Designed to feel like you’re relaxing in the living room of an art collector; with plump sofas and washes of pastel pinks and creamy neutrals, and over 3,000 labels and 30,000 bottles to choose from, you’ll have to be dragged home.

Location: Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1K 2AL 

Brooks Mews Wine House

Tucked away on a cobbled street behind Claridge’s, Brooks Mews Wine House was once a former carriage workshop; now this two-floored beauty houses more than 150 wines from around the world. There’s an easy-breezy feel to the place, with a perky mezzanine full of sink-into banquettes and sweeping picture windows where you can put the world to rights as you sip on your favourite glass of red, charcuterie boards and and seasonal small plates to hand. 

Location: 24 Brooks Mews, London, W1K 4EA