Binch: A Short, Sharp Name for a Hackney Wine Bar
Binch: A Short, Sharp Name for a Hackney Wine Bar | A Hackney wine bar whose short, punchy, coined name is all modern confidence and playful charm
Tag: wine bar London
107 Wine Bar: A Number, a Neighbourhood and a Glass
107 Wine Bar: A Number, a Neighbourhood and a Glass | A Lower Clapton wine bar whose name is simply its own address – cool, confident and understated
LULO: A Wine Bar With an Exotic Name
LULO: A Wine Bar With an Exotic Name | A Dalston wine bar and shop whose short, bright name has the ring of an exotic fruit and a warm welcome
WC Review: It Is in a Public Lavatory and That Is the Best Room Reuse in London
WC Review: It Is in a Public Lavatory and That Is the Best Room Reuse in London | A disused Victorian toilet under the pavement, and the tiles were always going to outlive the plumbing
In Vino Veritas Review: A 4.9, and the Phrase Is Older Than Latin
In Vino Veritas Review: A 4.9, and the Phrase Is Older Than Latin | The Persians decided everything twice – once drunk and once sober – and Tacitus reports the Germans doing it too
Templar Review: They Invented Banking and the King of France Destroyed Them for It
Templar Review: They Invented Banking and the King of France Destroyed Them for It | Deposit in Paris, withdraw in Jerusalem – and Philip IV owed them a fortune, so he burned them
Symposium Review: A Symposium Was a Drinking Party and Plato Wrote One Up
Symposium Review: A Symposium Was a Drinking Party and Plato Wrote One Up | Literally the drinking-together – and the philosophy happened after the food, on couches, with a master of ceremonies
Vagabond Review: The Argon Is the Whole Business
Vagabond Review: The Argon Is the Whole Business | An inert gas keeps a hundred bottles open at once, and it is the only reason you can drink something serious by the glass
Sager and Wilde Review: The Wine List Is the Whole Argument
Sager and Wilde Review: The Wine List Is the Whole Argument | A serious wine bar under a railway arch, and the by-the-glass list is the only thing in this survey that has ever mattered
Boyds Review: On the Avenue That Was Built to Impress
Boyds Review: On the Avenue That Was Built to Impress | Northumberland Avenue was cut through in the 1870s to give London a grand boulevard. Nobody has ever loved it.
Humble Grape Review: Every Wine Vine on Earth Grows on American Roots
Humble Grape Review: Every Wine Vine on Earth Grows on American Roots | An aphid destroyed every vineyard in Europe, and the fix was to graft the whole continent onto foreign rootstock
Humble Grape Review: 4.9, and the Vine Is Not Humble at All
Humble Grape Review: 4.9, and the Vine Is Not Humble at All | A grapevine can live for centuries, and the oldest one in the world is in a greenhouse at Hampton Court
Top Cuvee Review: A Cuvee Is Just What Was in the Vat
Top Cuvee Review: A Cuvee Is Just What Was in the Vat | The word means a batch, it has no legal meaning on a label, and it can be printed on anything
Paragon Review: A Paragon Was a Perfect Diamond
Paragon Review: A Paragon Was a Perfect Diamond | It meant a flawless stone of over a hundred carats, and then it meant a perfect person, and the stone came first
Cork and Bottle Review: A Million Pies Under Leicester Square
Cork and Bottle Review: A Million Pies Under Leicester Square | A basement wine bar that has not changed since 1971, directly beneath the worst square in London
Bedford Street Wines Review: A Shop You Are Allowed to Drink In
Bedford Street Wines Review: A Shop You Are Allowed to Drink In | 4.9 stars, a shop licence, and the best-value glass of wine in Covent Garden by a margin that ought to be illegal
Finley’s Review: A 5.0 From Eighty-Seven People
Finley’s Review: A 5.0 From Eighty-Seven People | The second perfect score in this district on a sample that is starting to mean something, and we cannot explain it
Humble Grape Liverpool Street Review: Named After a Workhouse
Humble Grape Liverpool Street Review: Named After a Workhouse | Liverpool Street station is built on the site of Bedlam, and the burial ground was found when they dug the Crossrail tunnel
UVA Cantina Review: The Last One
UVA Cantina Review: The Last One | A hundred and twenty bars, a hundred and twenty articles, and one final small room doing everything right
All Bar One Review: 5,227 People and Nothing to Say
All Bar One Review: 5,227 People and Nothing to Say | A chain bar with more reviews than the Lamb and Flag, and a rating higher than the Salisbury, and no story at all
All Bar One Villiers Street Review: The Same Bar, 0.1 Better
All Bar One Villiers Street Review: The Same Bar, 0.1 Better | Two branches of the same chain, in the same district, with the same menu. They are not rated the same. Here is why.
Voila Review: It Means See There, and It Is an Instruction
Voila Review: It Means See There, and It Is an Instruction | Not there it is. See there. It is a verb, and it is pointing at something, and the exclamation mark is doing real work
Waitrose Wine Bar Review: The Supermarket Steps Behind the Bar
Waitrose Wine Bar Review: The Supermarket Steps Behind the Bar | A 4.2 wine bar run by the supermarket Waitrose, an unusual venture by a grocery brand into the business of pouring wine
The 10 Cases Review: When It Is Gone, It Is Gone
The 10 Cases Review: When It Is Gone, It Is Gone | They buy ten cases of each wine and then never buy it again. It is a business model that sounds insane and is not.
Vinoteca Review: It Means Wine Library
Vinoteca Review: It Means Wine Library | Biblioteca, vinoteca, discoteca – the suffix means a place where things are kept, and it has been quietly attached to everything
Bar Rioja Review: The Wine Region That Became a Byword
Bar Rioja Review: The Wine Region That Became a Byword | A 4.4 wine bar named after Rioja, the Spanish region whose name became shorthand for good, affordable red wine
Bar Daskal Review: 4.7, and It Is Small, Which Is the Whole Prediction
Bar Daskal Review: 4.7, and It Is Small, Which Is the Whole Prediction | Eight postcodes and eight hundred venues, and there is exactly one variable that has ever predicted anything
Planet of the Grapes Review: The Pun Earns Its Place
Planet of the Grapes Review: The Pun Earns Its Place | It is a wine bar and it is named after a film about apes, and after four hundred and sixty articles we are ranking it
Baby Bacchus Review: The God of Wine Drives You Mad
Baby Bacchus Review: The God of Wine Drives You Mad | Dionysus is not a jolly god. He is the god of losing control, and the Greeks were extremely clear about what that meant.
Chilled Eskimo Review: The Name Has Not Aged Well
Chilled Eskimo Review: The Name Has Not Aged Well | Thirty-nine reviews, a 4.2, and a word that most of the people it refers to would rather you did not use