The Lonsdale

The Lonsdale ran on a quiet residential stretch of Lonsdale Road in Notting Hill, a cocktail bar that mattered well beyond its postcode. Through the 2000s it was one of the rooms that pushed London's cocktail revival forward, with a serious approach to classic mixology and a reputation for hospitality that drinks writers kept returning to.

The draw was the bar program. Difford's Guide and Social and Cocktail both logged it as a destination for properly made drinks rather than a neighborhood afterthought, the kind of room that trained bartenders who went on to open their own places.

The bar is now closed. This profile stays live as a record of where it sat in the city's cocktail story. For where to drink now, see our best bars in Notting Hill guide and the London cocktail bar guide.

The space leaned on a curved, decorative interior that listings of the era singled out as part of the appeal, a step up in design from the pubs around it. It read as a dedicated cocktail room rather than a bar bolted onto a kitchen.

Its position on a calm Notting Hill side street, away from the main road, gave it the feel of a find. That sense of a tucked-away destination was a big part of why it stuck in drinkers' memories.

• Difford's Guide logged it as a serious London cocktail destination of its era.
• Social and Cocktail and Gintime both profiled its bar program and design.
• Drinks writers credited it as part of the wave that revived London cocktails in the 2000s.
• By 2026, Yelp and other listings recorded it as closed and no longer operating.

• A reader tracing the history of London's cocktail revival.
• Notting Hill regulars curious about a former neighborhood landmark.
• Not a current option, The Lonsdale has closed.