Lyaness

Lyaness is the South Bank flagship of Ryan Chetiyawardana, the bartender who trades as Mr Lyan and whom The Telegraph dubbed "the world's most awarded bartender". It opened on 29 March 2019 inside Sea Containers London, taking over the Thames-side room that had housed his previous bar, Dandelyan — a venue he closed at its peak, months after it was crowned World's Best Bar at the 2018 World's 50 Best Bars. Lyaness went on to earn the same standing of its own, named World's Best Cocktail Bar at the 2022 Spirited Awards, and it remains a fixture on the global best-bars lists.

The room, designed by Jacu Strauss of Lore Design, trades Dandelyan's pinks for a palette of electric baby blue set against the site's existing green-marble bar, with picture windows framing the Thames and St Paul's across the water. The drinks list is deliberately unlike a standard cocktail menu: every drink is built around one of the bar's own house-made "core" ingredients — cryogenically produced vinegars, unusual ferments, cordials and tinctures drawn from everything from figs and parsnips to cornflakes — and the team will steer you by flavour rather than by spirit. The current list, Collaboration 2.0, runs to eleven new drinks alongside a set of revisited classics.

Crucially for non-drinkers, Lyaness rebuilds much of that same list without alcohol. Many of the signature cocktails are offered in a "boozeless" version, priced at £11, that keeps the drink's full flavour architecture and house-made ingredients while dropping the base spirit — so the zero-proof list is the real menu remade rather than a token afterthought. Confirmed boozeless builds include the Lobster Frappé, a creamy-yet-fresh drink centred on "immortal coconut" (coconut repeatedly reinfused into itself, then toasted and caramelised) with cucumber and a whisper of anise; the Pink Belly Gimlet, a savoury-leaning riff on carrot, honey and lemon; the Cherry Cannon Punch, built on straw-currant, pine and sakura tea with a lightly sparkling finish; and the Martini-style Lunar Tuxedo, which plays on raspberry. As the review site Hot Dinners put it, "if you're not on the sauce for whatever reason, then this is the bar for you".