American Bar

The American Bar is London's original cocktail bar, pouring since 1893 and, for most of that time, from this room just off The Savoy's Front Hall. It is where the city first learned to drink cocktails, under barmen who became the trade's founding names: Ada Coleman, who ran the bar for over two decades, and later Harry Craddock, whose Savoy Cocktail Book still sets the canon. Churchill and Hemingway drank here; it has twice been named the world's best bar.

The room is Art Deco in the Savoy manner. Pale walls carry black-and-white portraits of the guests who made it, a mirrored back bar holds the awards and the bottles, and a grand piano sits at the centre, played by a resident pianist each evening. Terracotta leather tub chairs are set low around silver-topped tables over a geometric carpet; the mood is unhurried early and livelier as the night draws on.

For a private event the American Bar can be taken in exclusivity: a reception for a landmark birthday, a launch, or the close of a corporate evening, with the bar's own team building the drinks list around the occasion. It sits within The Savoy on the Strand (listed separately), so a booking here draws on the hotel's kitchens, cellar and events team. Hire is arranged directly through the house rather than sold as a set package.