Butchers' Hall

Butchers' Hall is the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Butchers, tucked into Bartholomew Close behind Smithfield Market. The current building dates from 1960 — a postwar rebuild after the Zeppelin and V1 bombs that twice took out its predecessors — 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.