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Rhythm Factory
Perennially hip and popular, the Rhythm Factory is a relaxed and friendly coffee shop with a Thai lunch and dinner menu during the day, but come the evening it opens up the large back room, and tonnes of bands and DJs of all genres keep the up-for-it crowd happy until late.
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Royal Inn On The Park
Only a fool would divulge the name of their much loved local and - whoops! - we think we just have. On the western edge of Victoria Park this excellent place, once a poster pub for Transport for London, has a half-dozen real ales and Czech lagers on tap and outside seating to the front and in an enclosed terrace in back. It's always lively and attracts a mixed boho/louche Hackney crowd.
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Royal Oak
This authentic Victorian place owned by a small independent brewery in Sussex is tucked away down a side street and is a mecca for serious beer lovers. The literati might find their way here too; it's just a hop, skip and a handful of rice from the Church of St George the Martyr where Little Dorrit (aka Amy) got married in Dickens' eponymous novel.
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Royal Oak
This traditional boozer gone trendy gastropub has a good selection of bitter and a better-than-average wine list. It gets into its stride on Sunday when the Columbia Road Flower Market is on just outside the door.
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Ruby Lounge
King's Cross is being groomed slowly, so what was once an area frequented only by hardened clubbers (or prostitutes and junkies) is now turning into a three-Starbucks-per-square-metre neighbourhood. But Ruby Lounge was around when the going was tough and it's here to stay. It's a great place, with a warm interior, excellent DJs and an up-for-it pre-clubbing crowd.
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Salisbury
Facing off the super-chic St Martin's Lane Hotel, the Salisbury offers everything its opposite number doesn't: warmth, centuries of history, and a glorious, traditionally British pub interior. The Salisbury is packed in the evenings by pre- and post-theatre drinkers, and while it can be a little touristy, it's still a true London gem.
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Salt Whisky Bar
Two hundred whiskies and bourbons, lots of salt, and a sleek, dark wood interior make this friendly bar and comfortable lounge a fab place for drinking. Staff are knowledgeable and keen to share their tips with customers.
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Scala
On Fridays, this multilevel former cinema hosts Popstarz, a laid-back gay/mixed potpourri of indie, alternative and kitsch. On Saturday it's UK garage night Cookies and Cream. The venue is expansive but excellent, with a glass bar at its centre overlooking the stage but insulated from the noise.
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Seven Stars
Even though it's packed with lawyers in the after-office booze rush hour, the tiny Seven Stars is still a relative secret to many Londoners. Sitting behind the Royal Courts of Justice and originally a sailors' hang-out, this is a place overflowing with character, great food, beer and wine. The eccentric landlady and chef, Roxy Beaujolais, a former TV chef and raconteur, lets her cat, Tom Paine, roam around the pub and snooze on the window sills; the bar staff are friendly and the game dishes ravishing.
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Shadow Lounge
This home away from home for the Soho glitterati is a stylish basement club with plenty of comfortable coves to hang out in as well as a dance floor complete with poll. The door policy is a little erratic: at quiet times you're usually fine although there's generally an around £5 to around £10 entry charge; other times you'll need to be with a member or a Soho 'face' to make it past the gorillas on the door.
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Ship
Though the Ship is right by the Thames, the views aren't really spectacular along this stretch of the river - unless you're partial to retail parks and workaday bridges (which the owners freely admit). Still, the outside area is large, the barbecues in fine weather a real treat and the conservatory bar fun in any weather.
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Slaughtered Lamb
A great Clerkenwell local which, although it opened in 2004, already feels like an old favourite. Its one room is spacious, with flea market furniture, large windows, wooden floors and loud wallpaper, and the bar is lit by granny-style lamps. The beer on offer is good and the food is old England (fish and chips, fish fingers, sausage and mash etc). The black wall-papered downstairs room hosts regular live music and open mic nights.
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SO.UK
SO.UK is a stylish, light and airy Moroccan-themed bar serving unusual cocktails (Twisted Mojito, anyone?) and shooters. It's extremely popular, with the chance to spot a few well-known faces among the Clapham professionals on the pull.
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Spaniard's Inn
This marvellous tavern dates from 1585 and has more character than a West End musical. Famously, it was highwayman Dick Turpin's hang-out between his robbing escapades, but it has also served as a watering hole for more savoury characters, such as Dickens, Shelley, Keats and Byron. Perhaps we owe English language's greatest works of literature and poetry to this pub's ale? There's a big, blissful garden, and the food ain't half bad.
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Spice Island
What this enormous place lacks in history it surely makes up for with views. Just opposite the flagship YHA hostel in Rotherhithe, it has a large bar on the ground floor, a restaurant above and a large heated terrace overlooking the river.
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Star Tavern
This cheery place is best known for West End glamour and East End skulduggery; it's where Christine Keeler and John Profumo rendezvoused for the scandalous Profumo affair and where the Great Train Robbers are said to have planned their audacious crime. These days it's just a lovely boozer with reliable Fuller's beers.
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Sun And 13 Cantons
Certainly Soho's oddest-named pub, the Sun is a music-industry mainstay and a great place for young hopefuls to network. Everyone from the Chemical Brothers (first London gig) to Underworld (global smash hit written here) has links to this place, and there are still regular DJ nights downstairs. A far better reason to visit is the historic décor and relaxed drinking vibe upstairs.
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T Bar
A recent closure was a slap-on-the-wrist for wild and loose T Bar, which tends to host all-day club events on Sundays and raucous weekend nights. Now, with some bouncers brooding at the front door, it's still the same fun, with excellent DJs on Fridays and Saturdays. It's housed on the ground floor of the Tea Building, a creative hub for various hip companies cashing in on Shoreditch's aching coolness.
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Tim Bobbin
This charming boozer a short walk from Clapham Common is worth seeking out if you're trying to avoid Cla'am boys and girls on the piss. It's decorated with copies of its namesake caricaturist's rather rude 18th-century sketches, there are some decent ales on tap and a garden and brick conservatory with open kitchen in back.
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Trafalgar Tavern
This cavernous pub with views of the Thames and the O2 (the erstwhile Millennium Dome) is steeped in history, some of which is illustrated in the plethora of prints on the walls. Dickens apparently knocked back a few here - the Trafalgar is mentioned in Our Mutual Friend - and prime ministers Gladstone and Disraeli used to dine on the pub's celebrated whitebait.
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Trash Palace
This cool two-floor space, from the people who revolutionised London's gay scene with indie club Popstarz in the 1990s, has great staff and an alternative yet unpretentious feel. The lines outside can be big at the weekends, so get here early - as with most cool places in London, demand way outstrips supply. There's a small dance floor downstairs with a more relaxed lounge upstairs.
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Turnmills
This cavernous, long-running institution gets rammed on weekends when mini-festival Together kicks up a storm with its DJs, and all-weekend parties take over with big names and tonnes of good fun.
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Two Brewers
Clapham may have a rather suburban feel in general, and the High St in particular, but the Two Brewers endures as one of the best London gay bars outside the gay villages. A friendly, laid-back, local crowd comes for a quiet drink during the week and some madcap cabaret and dancing at weekends.
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Two Floors
It's amazing Two Floors has managed to keep its relaxed atmosphere when so many bars in Soho have been mobbed by drunken weekenders; it might have to do with the fact that it's hard to notice from the outside, and this low profile has helped maintain its cool personality. The punters are young, cool and bohemian, the bar staff equally so, and the music usually über-now. The distressed décor is leather sofas and country-diner tables and chairs.
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Underworld
Hear all ye metal heads out there! The Underworld awaits! Metallica, Black Sabbath, Sepultura and other skull-clad screamers have made their appearance either live or as a DJ's choice in this underground warren beneath the World's End pub. It's got plenty of nooks and crannies for ritual head-banging, but it does also host some 'softer' musicians like KT Tunstall and Radiohead.
