East London is where London's bar culture actually happens. The West End gets the tourists and the Mayfair hotel bars get the expense accounts, but the rooms that change the conversation — the ones that set the tone for what bars will look like three years from now — open in Bethnal Green, spread to Hackney, and end up in Dalston. This route takes you through all three.
We have built this crawl around the Overground line, which is the fastest way to cover the ground. But the best sections are walkable, and you should walk them. The connections between Bethnal Green and Hackney are full of things worth noticing.
The Route
East London Bar Route
Start east of the City, where the bars are serious without being expensive. Two stops here.
The middle section of the crawl. Overground to Hackney Central, then walk south. Three stops.
The Ridley Road end of Dalston. This is where the night actually starts in East London.
Bethnal Green (6:00pm)
Bethnal Green used to be where you went before Shoreditch. Now it is where you go instead. The bars around Cambridge Heath and Bethnal Green Road have better menus, more space, and about half the price points of their neighbours to the west. Start here and you will spend the rest of the night glad you did.
Thirty taps of craft beer and natural wine under a Victorian railway arch on Paradise Row. The list rotates daily and the team knows every brewery on it. Go before 7pm to get a spot at one of the barrel tables in the arch. The cheese toasties are not optional. This is also the best entry point into London's craft beer bar scene for visitors.
One of the best cocktail bars in London, full stop. The menu is built around Calvados and apple brandy in a way that should not work as broadly as it does. The room is small and the tables fill fast on weekend evenings. If you only have time for one cocktail bar in East London, this is the one. See the full list of London cocktail bars for the broader picture.
London Fields and Broadway Market (8:00pm)
The Overground from Cambridge Heath to Hackney Central takes four minutes. From the station, walk south through London Fields toward Broadway Market. This stretch of bars and wine shops opens up in the evening and has a completely different energy from Bethnal Green — looser, louder, more interested in natural wine and small plates.
A natural wine bar and bottle shop on Lower Clapton Road that operates on the principle that good wine does not need a lot of ceremony. The list changes constantly, the kitchen does small plates worth ordering, and the room fills with people who genuinely care about what they are drinking rather than where they are being seen. Wednesday through Sunday only.
"East London gives you the bars that the rest of the city will be copying in three years. Go now, before the queues start."
Dalston (10:30pm)
Dalston at 10:30pm is exactly right. The Kingsland Road bars are filling up but not yet impossible. The side streets around Ridley Road market have the city's most interesting late-night drinking options — basement bars, railway arch venues, converted shop fronts with no signage and 40-person capacity.
A bar built around a serious hi-fi system playing jazz, soul, and electronic music at a volume that rewards paying attention. The natural wine list is excellent and the whisky selection is better than it needs to be. There is no DJ, no big room, no event. Just music played properly and drinks that match it. One of the best hidden gem bars in London.
Two floors in a Georgian terrace on Bradbury Street, with live jazz in the basement most nights from 8pm. The bar upstairs is good; the music downstairs is the reason to come. Small entry fee for live nights, which are worth it. The London live music bar guide covers everything in this vein across the city.
From Dalston, the night can continue north to Stoke Newington or west back into Shoreditch, depending on energy levels. The Shoreditch bar-hopping guide is the natural complement to this route — covering the neighbourhood just west of here that starts later and ends even later.
Sofia covers Europe's bar scene with a focus on London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. She has spent 12 years writing about drinking culture and has visited more than 800 bars across 30 cities.
