This is a really good bar in Southwark, great for an after work drink and not too expensive for where it is! (good chips too)

www.viewlondon.co.uk/search-pub.aspx

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Great pub near Spitalfields: traditional with a spice of trendiness and east London charm. If you fancy a good Sunday roast, take a break after your shopping tour on Spitalfields market and Brick Lane.

9 Folgate Street
Spitalfields
E1 6BX
London

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This is a wonderfully atmospheric pub that constantly looks shut from the outside so is never too busy. Upstairs is a room that could be your lounge. Every Wednesday they put on live music and they never fail to impress me. The old chesterfield chairs allow you to go beyond relaxation and let you take in the acoustic sounds played out to you.

Number 2 Queens Crescent, Chalk Farm

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There's a magical Arctic experience hidden away behind the busy shopping hell of Regent Street. The build up to going inside is part of the fun.

First, you raise your body temperature by a few valuable degrees in the normal, heated Below Zero bar downstairs, which serves creative fresh fruity cocktails such as a scrummy apple and blackberry crumble concoction.

Everyone is allocated a 40 minute time slot so when your time comes they give you space-age silver cloaks, thick gloves and snow boots and you go into the Ice Bar. Inside it's minus five degrees and everything inside is made from clear crystal ice from Sweden – the walls, the bar, the tables and the chunky glasses, which you slurp simple but super-strong vodka cocktails from. Drinking doesn't get more refreshing than this.

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Have a taste of Greece in Bayswater. The cafe serves real Greek coffee, baklavas, tyropita and many other traditional Greek snacks.

31 Moscow Road Bayswater
London W2

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This is a very cheap solution for a pub lunch at the Opera bar on the first floor.

29 St Martins Lane WC2N 4ER

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It's nearly perfect: stunning building, great food, lovely cocktails, good-looking staff, regularly changing art exhibitions, a garden with deckchairs and cool industrial loos in the basement.

Erratic service, especially when the owner/manager is in, mars it. Plus she wears really strong scent.

But I still end up going back there, and when it is good it is very very good.

Afternoon tea with cocktails in the garden of an old power station is certainly unusual.

Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, Wapping Wall
E1W 3ST
Wapping
020 7680 2080
www.thewappingproject.com

Once you've eaten (alot) you could do worse than stroll back to Canary Wharf through the park opposite and then along the river

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A pub overlooking Peckham Rye. It's an old-style bar which has been given a bit of a makeover. However, they've got it just right in not changing too much. It's spacious enough with solid wooden tables at dining hight and a fire in winter.

The main bar is now non-smoking but there's a space out back for the chokers and in summer they open a huge beer garden.

Best of all is the food. Great varied menu featuring mezes, Thai/Chinese food, burgers, salads and roasts.

There's also a decent range of wines.

It's not that cheap but it's worth it for a treat or just to get a seat.

Rye Lane, Peckham, South London.
Five Minutes walk up from Peckham Rye Train station.

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This Cuban bar & restaurant promises the best Mojito in London - my boyfriend says they're ALMOST as good as his own, which is a great recommendation!

The food is satisfying and good value - great tapas including smoky patatas bravas and gorgeous melting sweetcorn fritters. Perfect to share. Mains such as steak won't break the bank, and are delivered to the table quickly even on a Friday night.

The cocktails are no more expensive than other bars but the atmosphere is much more laid-back.

This is not a "see and be seen" bar, more a place you can relax and have fun with friends, lose some inhibitions and cackle wholeheartedly while the attentive staff look after you.

Kensington Court, off High Street Kensington
W8 5DA

020 7938 4147
www.bdelmlondon.com

Nearest Tube : High Street Kensignton

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It's a tiny space - decked out in retro burlesque style, entered by a dramatic (if small) glass entrance just in front of the Lyceum. A former men's loo it is now rammed with high-tech stuff (sms jukebox, automatically opaque loo doors) and ambitiously holds shows (can't imagine how) every night at 10.

We went in for an early evening cocktail - all drinks 1/3rd off before 8pm. Cocktails strong but chemical, though the wine list looked okay. To be honest it's just feels like a pleasantly odd place to be drinking - huddled beneath the pavement sitting on leather seats which are shaped like buttocks. Maybe I wouldn't go back, but if you are in the area it's worth a visit.

Zero Aldwych
London WC2r 0HT
www.cellardoor.biz

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Slate-top tabled, concrete-walled, shabby-chic gem of a bar, always filled with Londoners after a day's slog at work. Hard to find (probably why there's never any tourists), it's underground below a sailing shop on Shaftsbury avenue just past Neil St. Great for a post-shopping bevvie, or just to people-watch and soak up the chilled but funky atmosphere. A London must.

Nearest tube- Covent Garden, walk to the top of Neil St then turn right onto Shaftsbury Ave. It's downstairs about 5 doors down.

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Beautiful historic Dutch bar in Soho. The interior is amazing and the atmosphere is buzzing. Good selection of Dutch and Belgian beers, and a superb food menu with lots of yummy Dutch snacks. The bar has a long history which adds to the vibe inside.

11 Macclesfield Street, Soho.
Piccadilly/Leicester Square tube

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Top quality NZ restaurant and tapas bar (no, me neither) on Marylebone High Street. The accents can be a bit grating, and the clientele includes some of the big sunglassed emigré types the area specialises in, but the food and wine is simply fabulous.

Marylebone Hight Street

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Brilliant, cheap little live blues joint right in the centre of town, fiver on the door and drinks promotions. Drinkable house red, horrid little loos, great clientele. Fight for a table near the band.

20 Kingly Street, Soho, London W1B 5PZ Tel: 020 7287 0514

www.aintnothinbut.co.uk/

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A classy bar/restaurant in the heart of the old city, between St Bart's hospital and Smithfield market. I'm told it used to be a scruffy if charming place - but the new proprieters have done a great job smartening it up. The impressive menu serves a good variety of English dishes and the wine list is exemplary. A fine choice for a night out. It is named after Sir John, who lived in the flat upstairs.

43-44 Cloth Fair
Nearest Tube stations: Barbican (Circle/Metropolitan/H&C) or St Paul's (Central).

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The best mexican food in all of London. The restaurant has been here since 1982, so it must have something going for it!

I can recommend the chimichangas, especially washed down with a bottle (or two) of Dos Equis!

www.cafepacifico-laperla.com/cafepacifico/index.htm

5 Langley Street, 2 minutes walk from Covent Garden tube

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Fantasic pub by the river Thames. Great location/setting and excellent food and drink. Recently done up and plenty of outside tables, decks etc. Only drawback is the goose poo on some of the tables!

Queens Road, Thames Ditton - just outside Kingston.

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The stretch of Kingsland Road between Shoreditch and Hackney can seem barren at the best of times, with little more than car mechanics and tool hire shops to stop for, but a sure sign that things are changing is The Fox, a gastropub ripe for serving the new cluster of flats springing up in the area.

The menu is organic, and changes monthly, and they have a special menu for kids. Sunday morning is a real family-fest. When I visited the patrons seemed to span in age from 8 months to 80 years.

372 Kingsland Road, London E8; tel: 020 7254 4012

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One of the best gay pubs in London. More laid-back than leering, with a nice mix of men and women. Tiny, which means lots of close-ups of people's backs/armpits/ears, but still great. Eclectic mix of eighties (think Stevie Nicks) and electro on the turntable. Follow the crowd to the Joiner's Arms down the road afterwards if you're still up for fun.

2 Hackney Road, London, E2 7NS;
tel: 0207 012 1100;
Underground: Old Street

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This cabaret event at Bistroteque in Bethnal Green is a scream. Hosted by cult cross-dresser Jonny Woo on a weekly basis, it’s kinda like a twisted pop idol, only without singing. Good night out, and the restaurant’s not bad either.

Bistroteque bar and restaurant: 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR;
tel: 020 8983 7900;
Underground: Bethnal Green

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