BYOC Covent Garden
NOTE: This branch is sadly now closed, but you can still visit BYOC Camden.
Pretend that you’re reading a normal article.
Make no sudden movements, and do nothing that might arouse suspicion.
Be cool.
The information that follows is for you alone. So if you’re going to make a move, best make it now.
This regards a secret cocktail bar… which stocks no alcohol.
Bear with us.
Tucked away beneath Covent Garden, B.Y.O.C’s like all of those other intimate, candlelit speakeasies you tend to frequent. You know the type of place: illicit, subterranean drinking dens with exposed brickwork, where lone barmen clink bottles as WWII jazz gently emanates from vintage gramophones, and where patrons buy cocktails for £15….
Yeah, BYOC’s just like those places.
Only the cocktails here are free.
All you have to do is reserve a table, pay £25 on arrival and then head along with a bottle of your preferred spirit. Or, if you have two or three preferred spirits, perhaps one of each?
Boozehound.
Table reservations last for two hours, during which time the bartender will combine your booze with the contents of his antique Italian drinks trolley (which contains everything from fresh syrups, pressed juices and spices to herbs, salts, home-made cordials and bitters) in order to create individual cocktails, all designed to match your flavour profile and “individual preferences”.
Like drinking doubles, presumably.
NOTE: This branch is now closed, but you can still visit BYOC Camden.
BYOC Covent Garden | 28 Bedfordbury Street, WC2N 4BJ
Like cocktails? Check out our guide to the best London cocktail bars.