Lucky Saint

Hinterland is Manchester's only permanent, purpose-built fully alcohol-free bar and vegan café, tucked into the basement of the Manchester Buddhist Centre in the Northern Quarter. Opened in June 2024 as a registered community interest company, it was founded by Stephen Jeffreys — drawing on his own recovery — with friends from the Buddhist Centre. The menu runs to eight alcohol-free cocktails alongside no- and low-alcohol beers, wines, ciders, kombucha and speciality teas, with vegan food from the Wholesome Junkies pop-up kitchen. Expect live music, spoken word and sober socials in a calm, dark-green room.

Artesian opened in 2008 as the bar of The Langham, the grande-dame hotel on Portland Place that has been synonymous with London glamour since 1865, and takes its name from the 360-foot artesian well that once drew the purest water in the city from beneath the hotel's foundations. The room was designed by David Collins Studio as a Victorian cabinet of curiosities: a soaring pagoda-topped bar, jewelled mirrored panelling, blue-and-purple faux-crocodile tiling, chinoiserie detail and its signature deep-purple leather chairs beneath high ceilings and tall bay windows. It is one of the most decorated cocktail bars in the world, named The World's Best Bar for four consecutive years from 2012 to 2015. Head bartender Giulia Cuccurullo's "Ultimo" menu includes dedicated non-alcoholic serves: Currant, a booze-free paloma with Smiling Wolf agave and London Essence raspberry-rose soda, and an effervescent Apple built on Lyre's American Malt and Amaretto with Wignac cider.

Hawksmoor Manchester is the acclaimed British steak-and-seafood group's Deansgate restaurant, set in a landmark former bank a short walk from Spinningfields. Alongside its charcoal-grilled, dry-aged native-breed beef and grand banking-hall dining room, it keeps a genuine, named alcohol-free cocktail list — the 'Lo & No Alc' section, part of the group's wider 'Temperates' philosophy of what to drink when you're not drinking. Zero-proof builds run from Steady Pete's Ginger Brew (Tanqueray 0.0 and Lucky Saint IPA) and a Non-Alc Cherry Negroni with Lyre's Amaretti to the Afterburner, made with Botivo and Almave non-alcoholic agave spirit. Homemade sodas and a grown-up Shirley Temple riff round out a list built with the same care as the full bar.

Nightjar opened in 2011 on City Road at the northern edge of Shoreditch and was among the bars that defined London's modern cocktail revival. It was founded by Edmund Weil and Rosie Stimpson, a jazz, swing and blues singer, who set out to build a room that would do justice to the music as much as the drinks — Weil has said the idea came from the style and the music angle before the drinks, rooted in a love of art deco design and the pre-Prohibition era. It took Difford's Guide's Best New Bar award in its opening year and went on to place third on The World's 50 Best Bars in 2012. There is live music nightly, and the menu carries an explicit non-alcoholic section rather than off-menu mocktails: the signature Adonis is built from Taronja de Gris orange wine, Aperitivo Professore, Fino sherry, barrel-aged tsipouro and Muyu Vetiver Gris for genuine bittersweet depth.

Red Light is a discreet, female-owned, LGBTQ+-inclusive basement cocktail bar hidden behind the red-brick façades and cobbled walkways of Kampus, in a converted Victorian warehouse on the edge of Manchester's Gay Village. It opened in May 2023 from Deana Ferguson, a longtime Manchester hospitality figure previously at Ducie Street Warehouse and Hawksmoor, who set out to build a proudly queer bar pairing incredible drinks with top-notch service. There is no signage beyond a single red light glowing on Little David Street, a nod to the area's hidden history, and the room has earned a place on the Top 50 UK Cocktail Bars list — intimate and low-lit, with plush booths, queer local artwork on the walls and a disco-leaning soundtrack. The zero-proof drinks are built like the full-strength list, from house-made acidulated juices, seasonal sorbets and specialist 0% spirits, and treated as equals. Just don't call them mocktails.

Schofield's Bar is the eponymous City Centre venue of award-winning bartender brothers Joe and Daniel Schofield, set on the art deco corner of 1930s Sunlight House. Widely regarded as one of the UK's most decorated cocktail bars, it gives its non-alcoholic drinking a dedicated 'Temperance' section on the main menu, poured with the same care as its cocktails. Current alcohol-free serves include the Dove (rose, pink grapefruit soda, lime), El Ranchero (apple, nutmeg, lemon, vanilla, almond, soda), Fortuna (cranberry, ginger, raspberry, grenadine, lime) and a from-scratch Virgin Mary, alongside Lucky Saint 0.5%, homemade ginger beer and a spread of Fentimans.

The Lucky Saint is the alcohol-free beer brand's first permanent pub, on Devonshire Street in Marylebone — a restored Victorian pub built around the alcohol-free pint rather than treating it as an afterthought. It serves a full bar of spirits, wine and cask beer as well, so this is a mixed room rather than a dry one, but the depth of the no-and-low list is the reason to come: around fifteen per cent of drinks sold here are alcohol-free. It pours the brand's own unfiltered 0.5% lager and a newer IPA alongside a rotating range of low- and no-alcohol beers, ciders and cans, Italian aperitivo bitters such as Crodino, and a short list of alcohol-free cocktails, with a full food menu. It is one of the clearest signs of London's shift: a busy, all-day pub where ordering a zero-proof pint is the unremarkable choice.