If you haven’t tried natural wine yet, then consider this a (minimal) intervention.
It’s the umbrella term for the growing trend in winemaking to just, well, let the grapes get on with it. There are the organic wines (no pesticides or creepy chemicals), the biodynamic wines (where grapes are grown in blissful harmony with natural cycles and the rest of the farmland), and the low-intervention wines (not adding a load of extra stuff to the fermentation process). In short, they’re all practices that make far less of an environmental impact, and just so happen to make wines that are extremely delicious, too.
These days London is furnished with a bounty of natural wine-focussed bars, stocked with cool and interesting bottles from small producers and up-and-coming growers. Here are the ones to cross off your bucket list…
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Bar Crispin | Soho
Bar Crispin is wedged into that excessively busy stretch of Kingly Street, where punters spill out onto the street and the city dons a distinctly European vibe. A wine-focussed spin-off of the casual Spitalfields restaurant, BC eschews the classic wine bar aesthetic of bare brick walls and candlelit alcoves. Instead, the interiors are a cross between grown-up kebab joint and a giant backgammon board, with mauve zig-zags running round the walls and high, zinc-topped tables.
Sommelier Alex Price is behind the all-natural wine list here, which has an emphasis on French regions as well as wines hailing from the volcanic soils of Greece and Tenerife. And it all comes with a neat menu of European tapas from Casa Fofò‘s Fabien Spagnolo, ranging from native oysters to pig’s head croquettes.
Details: 19 Kingly St, London W1B 5PY | Make a reservation at Bar Crispin
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107 Wine Shop & Bar | Clapton
If 107 looks awfully familiar – almost like, say, P.Franco – that’s because it is P.Franco, reborn under a different alias. The beloved Clapton wine bar closed in March 2023, but after a brief and successful crowdfund is now open again, in the same old space under the old red and yellow Chinese supermarket sign.
Inside you’ll still find that five-star assemblage of natural wines (with an Old World focus, where many are chosen and assessed after the staff have flown to the vineyards to personally meet the growers themselves) and the famously impressive kitchen residencies are back in full swing too.
Details: 107 Lower Clapton Rd, E5 0NP | Walk ins only, more info on their Instagram
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Planque | Hackney
Planque is French for hiding place… but given a Cockney accent, it’s also a really excellent name for a wine bar. This restaurant/members’ bar/event space multi-hyphenate revolves around the idea that wines get better with age. So to that end, they have cellars dotted around the beautifully styled space patiently ageing bottles. You can try a couple if you book into the Michelin-recommended restaurant or attend one of their highly popular winemaker dinners – but the truly committed can apply for membership to reap the full benefits of a dedicated wine concierge, monthly corkage allowances, exclusive events and more.
Details: Arches 322-324, Acton Mews, London E8 4EA | Make a reservation at Planque
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Cave Cuvée | Bethnal Green
Highbury’s beloved restaurant Top Cuvée spawned this East London spin-off that’s all about the wine. Upstairs is a bottle shop (Shop Cuvée), selling hands-down one of the best selections of natural wine in the city. Downstairs is a stripped-back subterranean wine bar, which also serves cocktails designed by the fellas over at award-winning cocktail bar Three Sheets. The team really know their stuff, and run twice-monthly tasting nights alongside introductions to the world of low-intervention vino. For eats you’ll find a number of simple, ingredient-led small plates: dry aged beef tartare or terrines du jour, as well as some really delicious, locally-sourced cured meats and cheeses to compliment the wine.
Details: 250a Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 0AA | Make a reservation at Cave Cuvée
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Lady of the Grapes | Covent Garden
A central London wine bar that combines old-school charm with forward-thinking brio. The interiors take a cue from classic Parisian wine bars – battered vintage furnishings, pendant lighting fashioned from old wine bottles, crates propped up in every corner. But the wine list is right at the cutting edge, celebrating organic and natural wines, around 80% of which come from female winemakers. You can read a little bio of each grower in the 100-strong menu, which spans from red to white, sparkling to fortified, and includes about 15 available by the glass at any one time. It’s also one of the best spots for fondue in London, offering 250g of molten cheese alongside an abundance of crusty bread and charcuterie.
Details: 16 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7NJ | Make a reservation at Lady of the Grapes
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Hop, Burns & Black | Peckham & Deptford
The hop: craft beer. The burns: mercilessly hot sauces. The black: artisan coffee. The unmentioned: a meticulously sourced collection of 100% natural, organic and biodynamic wines, available to buy by the bottle and either take home or sample on a picnic table outside as the sun goes down. They also run an excellent monthly subscription service, ‘Natural Wine Killers’, and stock over 100 of their favourites online, too.
Details: 38 East Dulwich Road, London, SE22 9AX | No bookings
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dan’s | Dalston
dan’s comes to you from Dan Long, who spent years in Oz learning the, er, vines of the wine industry. When the pandemic hit, he launched the online wine shop Natty Boy Wines, and now he’s opened a couple of dedicated natural wine bars where he stocks all 600+ bottles IRL. You can pick one up to take home or drink in for £15 corkage, or peruse the ‘by the glass’ list that he personally picks out each week…
ALSO VISIT: The sophomore bar in Exmouth Market, Ken’s.
Details: 2-4 Tottenham Road, Dalston, N1 4BZ | No bookings, just turn up
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Joyau | Forest Gate
If you have dreams of travelling through France and dropping into vineyards that – despite creating a comprehensive Instagram wishlist – haven’t quite come to fruition yet, head to Joyau in the meantime. The owners have just returned from their own tour of the country, bringing back all their favourite bottles with them – and now they’re uncorking them in an intimate railway arch wine bar with a sun-trap terrace in Forest Gate.
Details: 353 Winchelsea Road, London, E7 0AQ | No bookings
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40 Maltby Street | Bermondsey
A true London classic, tucked into an old railway arch just off Maltby Street market. This is partly the warehouse of organic wine importers Gergovie Wines; partly an industrial but cosy wine bar and restaurant, where hand-picked bottles beautifully complement the regularly-changing, seasonal, European-styled menu, scrawled daily onto a blackboard behind the dining counter. Buzzy, warm, and serious about wine.
Details: 40 Maltby Street, SE1 3PA | No bookings
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Yuki Bar | Hackney
Yukiyasu Kaneko is a former sommelier at NOMA, which is all many people will need to read before hot-footing it down here. Tucked under a Hackney railway arch with no-frills deco and a candlelit library of rare natural wines, it has the homely feel of a backstreet Tokyo bar. Nibble on chicken tsukune and beef tataki as an appetiser to the dinner you’ve booked round the corner, and enjoy a glass of one of Yukiyasu-san’s personal recommendations – there can’t be much cosier ways to start an evening.
Details: 426 Reading Lane, E8 1DS | No bookings
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The Sourcing Table | Peckham & Crystal Palace
Relatively new kids on the block, The Sourcing Table team have settled into London’s natural wine bar scene with the air of an old-timer pro. They’ve gone for the jugular with their collection, housing over 400 approachable (clean, only occasionally funky) wines, which you can either drink by the glass or by the bottle with a flat corkage fee. Once you’ve made your decision, take your new discovery to Peckham’s front patio – the perfect pairing for seeing out sunny days.
Details: 184 Bellenden Road, SE15 4BW | 67 Westow Hill, Crystal Palace, SE19 1TS | No bookings
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Peckham Cellars | Peckham
Peckham Cellars was set up by a group of self-confessed ‘wine fanatics’, fronted by former 28-50 sommelier Ben McVeigh. He’s spent the past decade drinking studying wine, and is now well-versed in the subtleties of terroir and the fermentation process. That said, the whole gang are up on their wine game, too, and the result is a ~150-strong hand-picked collection of bottles, not all of which are natural, but which are all sourced from small-scale producers and made with love. Stop by for a glass or two, and you can always load up with some of fantastic Mediterranean-inspired food, too. They also run a great wine subscription service, as well as regular tastings and other events.
ALSO VISIT: Their Camberwell cousin, Little Cellars.
Details: 125 Queen’s Road, SE15 2ND | Make a booking at Peckham Cellars
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Hector’s | Dalston
Everything’s just peachy at Hector’s, even the walls. It’s a bottle-shop, wine bar and cafe from Jimmy Stephenson (Hill and Szrok) and Anna Shaffer (the actor of Harry Potter and The Witcher fame). They serve Climpson coffee, pastries, and crispy Spanish bocadillos by day, and wine and European small plates by night – think Cantabrian anchovies soaked in olive oil and sprinkled with rose petals, or pig’s head terrine with cornichons. The natural wine library encompasses an impressive 300+ bottles, ranging from the ‘crowd-pleasers’ to ‘some absolute oddities’. It’s the type of place you could spend a whole evening, where the lights are low and the windows steam and you keep finding a reason not to go home.
Details: 49a Ardleigh Road, N1 4HS | No bookings
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Joyce | Brockley
Joyce is the spin-off wine bar from Brockley’s Salthouse Bottles, perfectly balancing knowledgeably-curated wine lists with a laid-back sense of fun (read: there are hula hoops on the snack menu). The bottles mostly hail from lesser-known wine-producing regions in Europe (including old Blighty), backed up with a selection of London-made vermouths and cocktails put together with small-batch indie spirits.
Details: 294 Brockley Road, SE4 2RA | Make a reservation at Joyce
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Forza Wine | Peckham
Why do you go here? Forza wine, of course. It’s all natural, mainly French and Italian, and with quite a few available on tap or by the litre. Handy for when you want to bed in and watch the whole sunset from this Peckham perch, with a little burrata, mussels with ‘Nduja or deep-fried polenta on the side. Plus a coffee soft serve to get you back down the stairs at the end of the night.
ALSO VISIT: Their Southbank sibling, Forza Wine at the National Theatre.
Details: 5th Floor, The Market, 133 Rye Lane, SE15 4ST | No bookings
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Yield N1 & N16 | Highbury & Stoke Newington
A laid-back bottle shop and wine bar, Yield in Highbury (N1) and Stoke Newington (N16) bolsters its mainly European booze selection with a load of other fancy pantry goods to take home with you, including Neal’s Yard Dairy cheeses and Pump Street chocolate. But if you want to stay in, there’s romantic seating tucked up at the back, and picnic tables out the front, where you can pop open any bottle you like for a corkage fee of £15, or just order something off their menu of top picks that week.
Details: 97 St Pauls Road, Islington, London, N1 2NA | 44-45 Newington Green, London N16 9PX | Walk-ins only
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Aspen & Meursault | Battersea
As anyone who’s hashed out the meaning of life with a friend over a bottle of red will tell you, wine and philosophy make good partners. Sunny Hodge’s ‘no BS’ wine bars make that official. He’s designed them as ‘thinking bars’, hoping to demystify the world of wine and get people to question why we choose things we don’t understand. The sophomore branch in Battersea is dedicated entirely to natural wines, spanning from Welsh to Czech ice wines, and even includes Hodges’ own Puglian red & white (bring the bottle back, and you can get it refilled for a tenner).
Details: 96 Westbridge Road, SW11 3PH | Make a reservation at Aspen & Meursault
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Elliot’s | Borough & Hackney
Elliot’s is all about low-intervention. In fact, their original café is right opposite Borough Market, so that the produce they use in their dishes is as fresh as possible. They take a similar approach to their wine list, which is curated by Isabelle Legeron – a ‘crusader for the natural wine movement’ who founded the global RAW WINE festival series. If anyone knows their natural wines, it’s her, and you can find her top picks on the menus at both the original Elliot’s in Borough and its Hackney sibling.
Details: 12 Stoney Street, London SE1 9AD | 121-123 Mare St, London E8 4RH | Make a reservation at Elliot’s
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Furanxo | Dalston
By day, it’s an authentic Spanish bodega and deli, with legs of jamón dangling from the ceiling, jewel-coloured tins of canned sardines, and cheese imported directly from top-quality, small-scale producers in Spain. But when trading hours are over, the place becomes a candlelit natural wine & tapas bar. Pull up a stool to the marble counters and try out their favourite Spanish tipples by the glass, over dishes made with the best ingredients in store that day.
Details: 85 Dalston Lane, London E8 2NG | No bookings
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Next Door Records | Shepherd’s Bush & Stoke Newington
A hip West London hangout that does a roaring trade in the holy trinity of Good Stuff: coffee, vinyl, and natural wines. Swing by in the day to pick up a record or a bottle of something nice, stay in the evening to lap up the guest DJs, live gigs and candlelit wine-swilling. Keep an eye out for their supperclub takeovers, and events like quiz night where a bottle of pet nat is only the second place prize…
Details: 304 Uxbridge Rd, London W12 7LJ | 182 Stoke Newington Rd, London N16 7UY | Make a reservation at Next Door Records
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Newcomer Wines | Hackney
Wien is a great place for wine. And if you can’t get there, then Newcomer Wines is the next best thing, with a selection focussed on Austrian grape-hooch. What is that, exactly? Well, mostly some nice dry whites, but the offering’s rounded out with their picks from further afield, plus a curated French collection by Kiffe My Wines. There’s an ever-changing selection available by the glass each day – prop up the chrome-topped bar if you want to pick their brains, or take a pew in their back garden for the perfect post-work wind-down spot.
Details: 5 Dalston Lane, E8 3DF | No bookings
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Highbury Library | Highbury
Offering all the wackiness of natural wine and none of the pretentiousness, Highbury Library is a laid-back, pared-back natural wine and craft beer bar right by the Emirates Stadium. This not only makes it a handy spot for a pre-match bev, but also a useful nightcap spot when you’ve hit one of Islington’s excellent restaurants and feel in urgent need of a skin-contact Sauvignon Blanc accompanied by a vinyl soundtrack. Which is often.
Details: 66a Drayton Park, London, N5 1ND | Book via [email protected]
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Carousel | Fitzrovia
Carousel’s known for bringing in a different wünderchef from around the world each week. But as part of their move to bigger digs in Fitzrovia, they’ve also unveiled a more permanent side to the operation. The wine bar here is a relaxed, open space with whitewashed brick walls, terrazzo flooring and some real flattering lighting. The walls are lined with over 100 bottles of low-intervention wine, with Carousel’s restaurant manager (and natural wine buff) Gigi Isola on hand to help you make good choices. Chef and co-owner Ollie Templeton is behind the menu of excellent sharing dishes, like steamed mussels with artichoke and samphire, or delica pumpkin with black trumpet mushroom and sage – all inspired by some of the greatest guest dishes that have passed through Carousel’s doors over the years.
Details: 19-23 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, W1T 1RL | Make a reservation at Carousel’s wine bar
Not wedded to natural wine? Then swing by London’s best wine bars (more generally speaking)