FL 09 · Dispatches
Off the estate: East London cocktails a short cab from the towers
The towers do glossy very well and texture hardly at all. For a drink with more character, East London is a short cab away in four directions. Where to go, and how to get back.
By Philippa, Bookings5 minute readPublished
Why the second drink belongs somewhere else
The estate's bars are good at what they do: clean, bright, efficient rooms where a gin and tonic arrives in ninety seconds. What they cannot supply is character. Almost nothing on the estate predates the 1990s, and the bars feel it. For a drink made slowly by someone who cares about it, in a room with some history on its walls, you have to leave.
The good news is that East London is close in every direction. Within a quarter of an hour by cab, outside the rush, there are serious cocktail bars in old shopfronts and railway arches, riverside taverns with terraces over the water, and canal-side warehouses turned into bars. The trick is choosing the direction before you get into the car.
North to Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is the serious choice. Along Cambridge Heath Road and the streets around the station, small bars treat their cocktails as seriously as anywhere in the West End, with a fraction of the ceremony. Satan's Whiskers, on Cambridge Heath Road, is the best known: a dark, narrow room with a short menu that changes often and bartenders who will build you something off it if you describe what you like. Several railway arches nearby hold bars and restaurants of their own.
It is a short run up from the Wharf, inside Zone 2, and suits the second or third drink of an evening that began with dinner on the estate. Tables in the small bars are limited; go early, or accept a stool at the counter, which is where the conversation with the bartender happens anyway.
West to Wapping's river terraces
Wapping offers the opposite of Bethnal Green: no cocktail list worth reading, but the river. The old taverns along Wapping Wall and Wapping High Street have terraces and windows over the Thames, and on a summer evening a plain drink on the water, with the towers lit downstream, beats any number of house specials. Take a good gin and tonic outside and let the tide do the work.
Wapping is minutes from the estate through the Limehouse Link, and the river stairs between the pubs lead down to the foreshore for anyone who wants to stand right at the water's edge. On certain weekends Tobacco Dock, the huge Georgian warehouse north of the High Street, hosts large events; check what is on, because the streets around it change character on those nights.
North east to Hackney Wick and the canal
On the western edge of the Olympic Park, where the park meets the Lee Navigation, Hackney Wick is a district of warehouse studios and canal-side bars that feels a long way from the towers and is not. The bars here are informal, often outdoors on the towpath in summer, and full of people who have never set foot on a trading floor. It suits a guest who wants a completely different evening, and a companion happy to walk a canal path in sensible shoes.
Hackney Wick station is on the Overground; from the Wharf, a cab is simplest, or the Jubilee line to Stratford and a short hop on. The hotels by the park are on our Stratford page, useful for an evening that should end nearby rather than back on the estate.
South, under the river, to Greenwich
Greenwich is the answer when the evening should feel like a small trip. Take the DLR south under the river, or walk through the foot tunnel from Island Gardens, and you arrive in a town with a covered market, a park on a hill and some of the grandest riverside architecture in London. The Trafalgar Tavern beside the Old Royal Naval College and the Cutty Sark Tavern further along on Ballast Quay both have tall windows on the water, facing the towers you have just left.
For something louder, Up the Creek on Creek Road is a long-running comedy club with a late show on its busiest nights, and the bars around the market stay lively at weekends. Greenwich straddles Zones 2 and 3; for addresses in Zone 3 the desk quotes the taxi fare in both directions before anything is fixed. The Greenwich page has the hotels and stations.
The ride home, planned early
Every one of these evenings ends with a journey back, and it is the part guests forget to plan. The Limehouse Link and The Highway make Wapping quick at night. Bethnal Green and Hackney Wick are straightforward by cab once the traffic has gone. Greenwich is easiest by DLR while it runs, and after that by car through the Blackwall Tunnel.
Decide before the last drink whether the night ends at your hotel on the estate or somewhere nearer, and tell the desk if the plan changes; the booking moves with you. If an evening runs longer than planned, it can be extended by message rather than by negotiation on a pavement.
Companions who judge a bar properly
Michelle makes an excellent drink at home and assesses every bar by the bitters on its back shelf, which makes her the ideal partner for Bethnal Green. Jasmin holds firm views on how a drink should be stirred and likes the second round to be something the bartender has to think about. Molly also knows her bitters, and begins late, which suits a night that crosses East London and finishes well after midnight. Tina treats a sour as a test of the whole bar, and she is rarely wrong about the result.
All four are among our brunettes, and the petite page lists Jasmin and Tina together. The Docklands night out covers how a multi-stop evening is timed, Wapping lists the riverside hotels along the way, and the lengths that suit a long night are set out on rates. Send the route, even a rough one, to booking.