Live Jazz, Themed Cocktails, and a Door You Will Walk Past
The Shoreditch basement that treats cocktails as historical eras and jazz as the main event. Book weeks ahead or gamble on a walk-in.
The entrance sits on City Road with no signage worth speaking of, which is why the first time you go you walk past it. Down the stairs, the room opens into a low-lit basement of dark wood and exposed brick, a small stage at one end, tables tucked into corners and booths. A trio is setting up. Someone at the next table is drinking a cocktail garnished with what looks like a small edible garden, and a Zombie has just gone past on fire.
Nightjar opened in 2010 and spent its early years near the top of the World's 50 Best Bars list, third in 2012 and second in 2013. Marian Beke ran the bar in that first period and built the signature menu, including the Name of the Samurai, which is still on the list. The format has not really shifted since: a cocktail menu organised by era (Pre-Prohibition, Prohibition, Post-War, Signatures), live jazz, swing and blues every night, table service only, no standing room. It is trying to be a proper subterranean speakeasy with a serious drinks programme attached, and it is one of the few rooms in London that pulls both off at once.
The rare London bar where the theatre on the table and the theatre on the stage are both worth the cover charge.
Editorial Deep
The menu is organised as a history lesson — Pre-Prohibition (1600–1918), Prohibition (1918–1932), Post-War (1940–2000), then the Nightjar Signatures — and the drinks are built to match the theatre of that framing. Garnishes arrive as small sculptural events: smoke, candy floss, edible gardens, whole botanical arrangements balanced on the rim. It could tip into gimmick and mostly does not, because the liquid underneath is serious.
At 7pm the basement is quiet enough to hear the ice work and to read the menu carefully, which is thicker than most novels. By 9pm the band is on, the room is full, and the volume shifts from conversational to leaning-in. Both versions of Nightjar are worth being in; they are just different rooms. The early sitting is where the drinks get your full attention. The late sitting is where the bar earns its speakeasy claim.
A mixed Shoreditch room — locals who have made it a regular, cocktail tourists, dates on best behaviour, groups of four in for the punches. The crowd skews knowledgeable rather than rowdy; the table-service format filters out the pub-crawl energy that Old Street can otherwise deliver on a Friday. Once the band starts, conversation drops to accommodate them, which is the correct etiquette and mostly observed. The crowd is neither the product nor the cost here — the drinks and the music are — but it does not get in the way, which in this postcode counts.
The Adonis at £8 is the sharpest line on the list; the punches are the best per-head math if you are more than two. The cover is the one part of the bill that will surprise a first-timer, so bring it into the arithmetic before you sit down.
This is one of the best versions of a live-music cocktail bar in London, and the occasion that brings you back is a booked booth at 7:30pm on a Wednesday with three other people, ordering a punch and staying through the first set. Skip it if you want to stand at a bar, if you want to walk in on a Saturday at 10pm without a reservation, or if you find £8 covers and 12.5% service charges the sort of thing you argue about. Book six weeks ahead for a weekend live set; try a walk-in early or late midweek if the site says full — Nightjar holds a handful of tables back, and the booking system takes no reservations between 21:15 and 23:00, which is where the confusion about availability comes from.
Order this
Drink this.
Name of the Samurai; a sharing punch for groups of four or more; Adonis (£8) for the no/low list
“Book a booth, order a punch, stay for the band.”
One of London's best live-music cocktail bars, doing serious drinks and nightly jazz in a proper basement speakeasy format. The £8 cover and 12.5% service push the bill above the modern-cocktail-bar tier, but the cover pays the musicians and the room is calibrated for a sit-down evening rather than a quick round. Book six weeks ahead for weekend sets; try walk-ins early or late midweek. Skip it if you want to stand at a bar or drop in on a Saturday night without a plan.
The Verdict
