In the new wine bars springing up in cities, towns and even at the seaside, natural wines and small plates are in, sommeliers and snobbery are out
Friday night and it’s crowded. A communal table runs through the room, a couple of seats face windows thick with condensation. Scribbled on a blackboard menu are a few wines, plus a selection of dishes a lone chef in a minuscule kitchen somehow whips up. There’s paté en croute on your plate and Afrobeats hums at just the right volume. A shelf displays bottles with takeaway prices written in white marker. You’re at … well, you could be in any one of the new generation of wine bars that have emerged all over the country in the past few years.
Not just a bar but not quite a restaurant, natural wines and inventive small plates are their calling. Since 2020, London has seen a swathe of openings, from Cadet on Newington Green to Hector’s in De Beauvoir and Oranj in Shoreditch. Every neighbourhood in the capital, from Camberwell to Clerkenwell, now has one. Even Mayfair, where ArtFarm, owned by Hauser & Wirth gallery founders Iwan and Manuela Wirth, recently set up a wine bar below their Farm Shop.
