Vintry & Mercer Hotel

Vintry & Mercer sits in the City's old Vintry Ward, among the livery halls and narrow lanes that run down to the Thames, and the design plays on that wine-merchant past throughout. The hotel's most interesting room for music is the one you cannot see from the street: Do Not Disturb, a basement speakeasy reached through a darkened doorway tucked back on Garlick Hill. Modelled on the clandestine bars of 1920s New York, it is fitted out with red leather banquettes, plush velvet tub chairs and hand-beaded portraits of Ziegfeld Follies girls, and runs a programme of barrel-aged and house cocktails until 1am from Tuesday to Saturday.

Upstairs the hotel spreads its drinking and dining across several distinct spaces. The Mercer Roof Terrace looks out over the City skyline, from the dome of St Paul's to the tip of The Shard, with floor-to-ceiling glass doors that open the room to the terrace in warm weather. Vintry Kitchen is a relaxed ground-floor cafe that turns over to private hire in the evenings. Three named event rooms sit alongside them: the wine-red Drawing Room, the larger teal-panelled Library beneath an enormous printed map ceiling, and the Music Room, lined with iconic British album covers and stocked with a record collection guests can play.

The Drawing Room and Library interconnect for larger receptions, and the whole hotel is available for exclusive hire across the bar, roof terrace and Vintry Kitchen. For an intimate City event, Do Not Disturb is the draw: enclosed, low-lit and built for late nights.