Cocktails

Mayfair is firmly getting its mojo back and the arrival of cool new cocktail bar Brutes is a great example of that. 

For years we’ve kept Londoners apprised of the hottest restaurants to have on their radar. Now we’re doing the same for the city’s bars. Every season, we’ll update this list with the hot new bars you should know about. 

Following a hugely successful residency, New York's Dante is now a permanent fixture at Claridge's. We went to see what's new on the menu and to have a go at the three cocktail lunch. 

We LOVE a good martini here at Hot Dinners, so we do feel pretty well qualified to point you towards some of our favourite places to enjoy a martini around London. 

A London cocktail bar which overlooks the red carpet on Leicester Square is making full use of its location this week to serve up an XXL drink. The Rocket Room, which is part competitive gaming venue and cocktail destination, has come up with the Jason Mamosa as a tribute to actor Jason Momoa's role in Supergirl, which is having its UK premiere in London on Thursday 18 June.

The gigantic cocktail (look at the photos - it's the size of your head!) is a supersized take on a Mimosa and comes to the table in a giant fishbowl. It's made with OJ and your choice of a whole bottle of Pol

Three incredibly experienced bar professionals have set out on their own, opening Without Papers, a Shoreditch bar serving up excellent Italo/British cocktails. We pulled up a stool at the bar.

When you learn that the duo behind new Mayfair bar Brutes have an absolute ton of restaurant and bar experience between them, it's perhaps no surprise that they've managed to feature every current bar and snacks trend in town. But a proper look at what they have planned for their Bruton Place bar shows that they are intending to take almost everything to the next level.

While everyone else is doing martinis, Brutes goes one further with a martini card that allows you to pick your base spirits, the style it's served (dry, wet, dirty and - a new one on us - brutal), plus the

If you've been to El Pastor in Soho, you'll have noticed that their basement bar is closed for a complete overhaul. When it's finished, they'll be unveiling it as their new cocktail bar, El Siete.

The new look of the bar will be going for a brutalist and modernist approach, inspired by the same kind of architecture in Mexico City. It has a new entrance too, no longer tied to the entrance of El Pastor. You'll be able to track the bar down by the "discreet pink door" on Brewer Street and apparently that pink aesthetic will continue on the walls in the bar below.

Down there,

Newly opened in Covent Garden, Cato is a cocktail bar of two halves, with a seasoned bartender behind the drinks. We went in for an early look.  

Look, we love a gimmick as much as the next person, but even we were slightly taken aback by the upcoming Old Street bar FlipDog. The bar (which happens to be a cocktail bar rather than a hot dog place) is going to be using a Loggerhead method to make some of its drinks. That means they're going to be putting a 1200°C iron poker into the drink "to enhance flavour, texture, and aroma."

It all sounds completely wild, but the owners behind FlipDog do have prior. Co-owner Artem Skapenko co-owns HRAM and Loggerhead Kyiv, described as a hidden gem by the World's 50 Best. That also uses