Editorial
London's outdoor bars in summer are not about the weather — the weather is not reliably on your side. They are about the setting: the combination of space, drinks quality, and the particular energy of a city that treats a sunny evening like a civic emergency and responds by moving every conversation outside. The best outdoor bars in London for summer have earned their place by being worth visiting on a warm Tuesday as well as a packed Saturday. These are our current picks.
South London has the highest concentration of genuinely excellent outdoor drinking spaces in the city. The combination of riverside terraces on the South Bank, the Peckham rooftop culture, and the garden bars scattered through Brixton and Bermondsey gives it an edge over most other areas.
East London's outdoor bar landscape is driven by the same creative energy as its indoor scene — a concentration of independent operators, repurposed industrial spaces, and a willingness to experiment with format. These are the ones that have settled into consistency.
North and West London both offer outdoor bar options that get less coverage than the South Bank and Peckham but deliver experiences worth making the journey for.
For the single best outdoor bar experience in London this summer, Flat Iron Square on a warm Friday evening is hard to argue with: the variety, the accessibility, and the combination of multiple operators in one space make it work for different groups and different budgets in a way that a single-bar destination cannot. For a more specific and elevated experience, the Dandelyan terrace at Sea Containers delivers the best combination of drinks quality and Thames setting in London. After-work drinkers who want something genuinely local and unhurried: The Crabtree or The Anchor and Hope, both of which do the riverside summer pub experience without pretension.
London's outdoor bar season stretches further than summer alone. If you're planning ahead, our guide to the best outdoor bars in London for spring covers the terraces and canal-side spots that open early when the first warm days arrive in April and May.
Sofia covers the European bar scene for barsforKings. Based between London and Lisbon, she has spent considerable time testing London's outdoor bar options and has strong opinions about Thames-side terrace etiquette.