Hide Below is the bar for the date that's already going to land.

The 30-second pitch

Hide Below is for the first date that already knows.

Ollie Dabbous closed his eponymous Soho restaurant in 2017 to open Hide on Piccadilly, a three-floor restaurant-and-bar complex with views of Green Park, a Michelin-starred dining room above, and a bar in the basement. Hide Below — the basement — is wine-led rather than cocktail-led, which is the format's quiet superpower. The cellar above is one of the largest in London (Hedonism, the wine merchant, owns it); Hide Below has access to that whole list, plus a tightly-curated set of cocktails built for evenings rather than openers.

For a first date the room asks more of you than the introduction-friendly bars on this list. Hide Below is not the room for hedging. It's the room for a first date that you've decided in advance is going to be an evening — a date you've waited for, a date you want to make a point of. The room rewards commitment.

The moment it makes

The sommelier recommends a wine and you both decide to trust them.

The Hide Below moment comes when the sommelier arrives at your table. They will. Even at the bar, the cellar's depth means a sommelier shows up to talk through options. The moment is small: they ask what you usually like, you tell them, they suggest something you've never heard of, and you both agree to trust them. Whatever they bring is going to be excellent — the room's quality control on wine is among the best in London — and the ten-minute window of letting an expert lead is itself a quiet bonding moment.

That trust extends. By the time the bottle arrives at the table you've been collaborators on a small decision, and the pour ritual sets a tempo for the evening that's slower and more attentive than a cocktail bar's. The night now has the shape of a real evening rather than a date.

What to order

The wine first. The cocktails second.

By-the-glass wine list. Hide Below's by-the-glass selection rotates and is unusually deep — you can drink wines other London bars only sell by the bottle. Ask the sommelier to pour you a flight of three small glasses around a theme; the format gives you a built-in talking structure for the next thirty minutes.

The Hide Martini. Built with the bar's house gin and a small float of bone-dry vermouth. Among the best martinis in Mayfair — quietly, without making a fuss of it.

The food. Hide Below has a real bar food programme — the Dabbous kitchen at 70% effort, which means crispy chicken sandwiches, beef tartare, mushroom flatbread. Order at least one plate. The food is not optional; the room is built for grazing.

What to skip: the over-engineered cocktails. Hide Below's cocktails are good, but the cellar is the room's actual identity. Lean into the wine.

Timing strategy

Take the 7pm reservation. Plan to stay three hours.

Hide Below takes reservations through Hide's own site and through Resy. Walk-ins are accepted but the bar's banquettes book up early. The 7pm window is the magic — early enough to start fresh, late enough to commit, with three hours of room ahead of you. The bar is at its calmest from 6 to 8, then ramps up as Hide upstairs's diners come down for after-dinner drinks.

Hide Below is one of the few Mayfair bars where staying for three hours is structurally encouraged. The format is a long evening, not a quick drink. Plan accordingly.

What makes Hide Below Hide Below

The cellar is the format.

Most cocktail bars are bartender-led. Hide Below is sommelier-led — the room operates more like a wine-restaurant bar than a craft-cocktail bar, even though the cocktails are excellent. The shift in format means the date runs at a wine-restaurant tempo: slower, more attentive to food pairings, more focused on a single bottle than on rounds of drinks. For a first date this changes the shape of the evening from sips-and-stories to glasses-and-conversation, which most couples find more substantive.

The other thing that makes Hide Below: the design. The basement is dim, leather-banquetted, with a curving bar that catches gold light from the upstairs atrium. The room manages to feel deep and contained without feeling claustrophobic — a basement that has the reach of a bigger room.

What it costs

Plan on £100 each for two glasses of wine and a cocktail and food.

Wine by the glass £14-£28; cocktails £18-£24; food £14-£28. A three-hour evening with two glasses of wine each, one shared cocktail, and two food plates lands at around £200 for two before service. Hide adds 15% discretionary service. Total: about £230. Among the more expensive rooms on this list, but the wine quality and food included make it less wallet-stressful per hour than the Connaught.

The bar takes cards, contactless, and Hide's own gift cards. Bills come at restaurant pace, not bar pace.

Who you'll be sitting next to

The crowd is finance, fashion, and Hide upstairs's diners.

Hide Below's regulars are an older Mayfair than Lyaness or Tayer + Elementary — finance professionals from the surrounding blocks, fashion industry, plus a steady stream of Hide-restaurant guests coming down for digestifs. The age skews thirty-five to sixty, the dress is uniformly elegant, and the volume stays civilised even at peak. There is no DJ, no music turn-up, no scene.

Dress code is "you came from a real evening." Smart-casual at minimum, ideally jacket and dress. The basement reads as a serious room and rewards effort.

Failure modes

Three reasons a Hide Below first date doesn't work.

Your date doesn't drink wine. Hide Below is wine-led; a cocktails-only date will miss the room's whole gestalt. Fix: switch to The Connaught or Donovan nearby.

You wanted a quick drink. Hide Below punishes hurry. The format is a three-hour evening; trying to do a forty-minute drink will feel like a misuse of the room. Fix: only book Hide Below if you're committing to the full evening.

You didn't budget for the wine. The cellar is brilliant and the prices are commensurate — by-the-glass wines can run £25 each. Fix: agree on a per-glass budget with the sommelier upfront. They'll cheerfully work within it.

If Hide Below is full

Three second-choice wine-led first-date rooms.

Noble Rot Soho (twelve minutes). The most-respected London wine bar; less formal, equally cellar-deep.

67 Pall Mall (members club). The wine flex of London. Possible via guest membership.

Sager + Wilde Hackney (forty minutes east). The East London wine-bar peer; more casual, equally serious about wine.

Editorial verdict

The first-date room for the night that already knew it would land.

Hide Below earns its #18 ranking by being the most-reliable London first-date room for a specific brief: the date that already feels like an evening rather than a meeting. For first dates between two people who know what they're doing, who want to plan a real night, who want food and wine and time, Hide Below is unmatched. The cellar does work no other London bar's cellar can.

For first-time-meeting hedging dates, the room asks too much — too long, too expensive, too committed. Pick this room when you already know.