A serious tiki bar on Upper Street — Georgi Radev's rum-led answer to London's craft cocktail orthodoxy.
Laki Kane opened on Upper Street in 2018 under Bulgarian-born bartender Georgi Radev, who built the bar around a no-sugar-syrup rum programme and a sustainability stance unusual for the tiki category. The World's 50 Best Bars placed Laki Kane in its 2023 Top 100 (Discovery list), and Class Magazine named Radev the UK's Bar Operator of the Year in 2022. The downstairs rum school — a hands-on session blending and ageing your own rum — is the bar's calling card.
The right visitor wants serious tiki without the kitsch overload of an Archer Street imitation — or wants a Saturday-afternoon group experience built around the rum school. The wrong visitor wants quiet, classic cocktails, or a beer list. Time Out London calls the room "the most genuine tiki bar in the city, by some distance."
Two levels: a ground-floor bar in palm-leaf wallpaper, with a counter that pivots toward the front window, and a downstairs tiki temple with carved wooden booths and a working rum lab. Difford's Guide describes the upstairs as "warmer than the average Upper Street cocktail bar; the downstairs as a Disneyland for the rum-curious." The fans, lighting, and bamboo treatment are well-done rather than ironic.
Order the Banana Daiquiri (£13) — Radev's signature, made without added sugar, and the drink the bar is most cited for. The Painkiller (£14) and the rotating tiki bowl (£48 for four) are the table orders. Class Magazine's 2022 profile of Radev highlights his no-syrup approach as the bar's defining technique — sweetness comes from fruit reductions, not added sugar. The rum list runs over 250 bottles.
Skip ordering a martini or a whisky cocktail — the rum programme is the entire point, and r/londonbars regulars note that the off-category builds are weaker. Book the rum school (£55, 90 minutes) at least a week ahead for weekend slots.
Wednesday and Thursday evenings read as Islington locals and cocktail-curious; Friday and Saturday tilt toward birthday groups and rum-school attendees making a night of it. The room shifts harder than most Upper Street bars at the weekend — tables get pushed back for dancing on Saturday after 22:30.