NT's sits on Westgate Street between Hackney Central and London Fields, the permanent cocktail bar and pizza room that grew out of the Night Tales events crew. It is a New York loft-style space that pours inventive cocktails by day and turns into a DJ floor by night.
Who would love it: an east London crowd that wants an inventive cocktail, an oven pizza and a DJ as the night turns. Who would not: a drinker after a quiet hotel-bar pour, because the room flips to club energy once the decks start.
The citable history is straightforward. Night Tales built its name on pop-up parties before turning the format permanent with NT's, as Hot Dinners reported, and the loft sibling NT's Loft nearby carries the same brief of cocktails, cold pints and pizza. Time Out covers both rooms as fixtures of the Hackney scene.
The cocktail list runs eclectic and is mixed to order by staff who lean into the work. The happy hour, two-for-one classics from 5pm to 7pm daily, is the smart window for a discerning drinker to test the bar before the kitchen and the floor take over. Cold pints and crisp oven-baked pizzas hold the room together through the evening.
Marcus Webb's read: the list rewards the classics done properly more than the showpieces, so a well-built old fashioned or a negroni is the honest test of the bar. Come early, work the happy hour, and judge the room on its core pours rather than the late-night spectacle.
The space reads as a cafe by day, all daylight and pizza, then shifts as the energy lifts and the DJs come on. Weekends are when the club side asserts itself, with the floor pulling a younger Hackney crowd well past midnight.
Best time to go: early on a Friday or a weekday evening, when the cocktails get full attention and the room is lively without being a club. NT's earns its place on the strength of the bar work and the format, a drinking room that knows how to become a dance floor on cue.
See where it sits among the best cocktail bars in London, and read our wider guide to the best bars in London for the full picture.
The pizza is more than a soak, since the oven-baked menu is built to keep a table grounded through a long night rather than to compete with the bar. It is the kind of kitchen that lets a group settle in, eat well and keep ordering drinks without decamping, which is part of why the room holds its crowd so late.
What guests note across the reviews is the value of the early hours and the strength of the DJ programming once the night turns. The fair caution is the shift in character, since a quiet cocktail at six becomes a loud floor by eleven, so the timing of a visit decides which version of NT's a drinker actually gets.
Who it is for: an east London drinker who wants a serious cocktail before a night out, a group after pizza and pints with a soundtrack, and a visitor curious about the Night Tales format in a permanent home. It is less suited to anyone after a calm late drink, since the floor and the volume rise as the evening goes on.
Pair this bar with
For more in the city, compare Nightjar Shoreditch London, Mikkeller Bar Shoreditch London and Kwant London.
Sources
NT Bar official site · Time Out London: NT's Loft · Hot Dinners: Night Tales turns permanent · Google Maps reviews (2026)
Reviewed by Marcus Webb, barsforKings. Published Dec 4, 2025 · Last reviewed Jun 14, 2026.
