Butchers' Hall

Butchers' Hall is the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Butchers, tucked into Bartholomew Close behind Smithfield Market. The current building reopened in September 2019, rebuilt on the site of the 1960 hall that had itself replaced a predecessor destroyed by wartime bombing — but the Hall guests walk into today is the product of a multi-million-pound refurbishment by architects dMFK, completed in September 2019. The result sits somewhere most livery halls don't reach: panelling, stained glass and a bronze bust of the Queen Mother alongside a fibre broadband line and a lighting rig built for a party rather than a ceremony.

The Great Hall is the headline space — Southland beech panelling gifted by the New Zealand government, arched windows glazed with company heraldry, and a run of table settings long enough to seat 160 beneath its original chandeliers. Below it, six further rooms range from the Court Suites' more intimate panelled sittings to a blackened, olive-treed roof terrace looking straight across at the Barbican towers. It is a working hall first — the Company still dines here — and a private-hire venue second, which is exactly the point: guests get the City's livery tradition without the tourist gloss.

For a DJ-led evening, the ground-floor Reception Room is the one to watch: its glazed art panels and open floor have taken a full lighting rig and a laid dancefloor before, giving the Hall a genuinely flexible late-evening option alongside its formal dining rooms upstairs.