Kwant

Kwãnt is the Mayfair cocktail bar of Erik Lorincz, the Slovakia-born bartender who spent over seven years as head bartender of the American Bar at The Savoy — helping take it to No. 1 on The World's 50 Best Bars in 2017 — and who won the Diageo World Class competition in 2010. He opened the first Kwãnt in 2019 in the basement of Momo on Heddon Street, where within a year it was named Best New Opening at The World's 50 Best Bars 2020. After Momo closed during the pandemic, Lorincz spent around 18 months designing and relaunching Kwãnt at its current corner site at 52 Stratton Street, a two-minute walk from Green Park, reopening in 2023. The name is a play on the word "quaint." The reborn bar drew CLASS magazine's first-ever 10/10 review and now sits within Europe's 50 Best Bars.

The room trades the original basement for a large, high-ceilinged corner space with floor-to-ceiling windows, styled as a tropical-colonial retreat: a hand-painted Polynesian tapa-style wall mural, a Vietnamese cane-webbing ceiling, slow-turning ceiling fans, tall palms in the windows and retro furniture with mustard-coloured sofas and chessboard tables. A mixing desk shifts the space through a series of lighting moods as day turns to night. Rather than working behind a back bar, the bartenders serve from three stations around a huge central island, with a dedicated seat set aside for solo guests. Micro-herbs and garnishes are grown in-house on an Evogro hydroponic cabinet and cut to order, and drinks arrive in bespoke Rona glassware Lorincz designed for individual cocktails.

The menu is divided into signature and vintage cocktails, and alongside 24 alcoholic drinks it carries a dedicated line-up of five non-alcoholic drinks built with exactly the same techniques as the rest of the list — fermentation, clarification, carbonation and in-house distillation. The bar makes its own ferments (fermented cucumber, beetroot and lapsang-souchong vinegar) and unusual distillates, and the zero-proof drinks lean on these house-made components and the hydroponic herbs rather than simply substituting a non-alcoholic spirit; expect lighter, fruitier spritz-style builds as well as more savoury, spice-driven ones. Europe's 50 Best Bars sums up the range as running from "spirit-forward stirred concoctions, to lighter and fruitier spritzes, and a line-up of non-alcoholic drinks utilising just as much innovation and creativity." The specific zero-proof drinks rotate and aren't published online, so it is worth telling the bartenders what you like and letting them build one to taste. Kwãnt is walk-ins only, with no reservations.