Editorial
London is one of the world's most expensive cities for a night out, and one of the most rewarding once you know where the value lives. The £18 cocktail at a Mayfair hotel is real. So is the £5.50 pint of cask ale at a Bethnal Green pub with more history and better company than anywhere in Mayfair. The gap between the two experiences, in terms of enjoyment, is not measured in pounds.
This guide covers 5 pubs and bars across Shoreditch, Dalston, and Hackney, all within budget parameters and none of them compromising the things that make London's bar scene worth visiting. The total outlay for one drink per venue, with a tip, runs to £28 to £34 depending on your choices. Our editor Sofia Reeves ran the route on a Thursday evening in late March and confirmed every price.
"London has always had cheap drinking for those who know where to look. The pub was invented here precisely because ordinary people needed a good place to go. They still do."
Start at the Carpenter's Arms before 7pm (Bethnal Green tube, then a 5-minute walk north on Cambridge Heath Road). Walk 15 minutes west to Howl at the Moon in Shoreditch. XOYO is 8 minutes on foot from there. For Netil360, take the 26 bus or walk 25 minutes northeast to London Fields. Dalston Superstore is a 10-minute walk north on Kingsland Road, or 3 stops on the Overground from Hackney Central.
The broader London bar scene extends well beyond East London, covering Soho, Brixton, Peckham, and the South Bank. For the full overview of value options across all of London, the best cheap bars in London guide covers 25 options across 8 neighbourhoods. The best bars in London editorial covers the consensus picks at all price points.
Sofia covers Europe's bar scene from a base in London, with quarterly reporting trips to Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, and the Iberian Peninsula. She has been writing about bars for 11 years and insists that the best bar in any city is never the one that won an award last year.
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