Scarfes Bar
Andy Loudon puts the bar's method on the record plainly: "the DNA of our drinks lies in our technical processes, our ability to distil, clarify, and rectify ingredients in our lab is something we take great pride in," and the clearest proof is his Sazerac riff served with a purpose-designed olfactory spoon "that hits multiple flavour receptors simultaneously" (The Spirits Business).
Why go
Loudon came in as director of bars at Rosewood London in summer 2024, and his CV is the reason the drinks land where they do: classics at Satan's Whiskers, where he won the Havana Club Grand Prix in Cuba in 2014, then modernist technique at 69 Colebrook Row, then Tippling Club and the consultancy Proof & Co in Singapore (CLASS). Both halves show on the list. The current menu, Heroes & Villains, takes Gerald Scarfe's 2003 National Portrait Gallery exhibition and turns caricatures of ten public figures into paired drinks, one elegant and one deliberately excessive, so Thatcher yields the Iron Lady, a clarified build of whisky, chocolate wine, fig leaf and citrus (Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026). The room is the artist's gallery: Rosewood asked Scarfe to do for High Holborn what Bemelmans did for The Carlyle in New York, and he painted the Royal Family, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, plus canvases from his Pink Floyd and Disney's Hercules work (CLASS). Credit for getting the bar onto the world list belongs to Martin Siska and Yann Bouvignies, whose eight years running it ended in 2024, which Loudon says himself.
Order this / avoid
- Order: one of the hero-and-villain pairs, since that is the whole point of the current list. The 4.50 from Paddington comes off Agatha Christie as "a gin and tonic twist with gin, Chinotto honey, Acqua di Cedro and zesty tonic," and her villain side is the Whodunnit, "a sidecar riff bringing together Remy Martin 1738 Cognac and a wild sour blackberry and kumquat aperitif" ref. Then look up: Josh Ong rates the Scotch selection at "there aren't many better places in the world to drink one" ref.
- Avoid: walking in with a drink order from an article. The list has been rebuilt three times in three years, From Scratch in 2024, Long Drawn Out Sip in March 2025 and Heroes & Villains in March 2026, so the Toothless Grin and the rest of that 2025 chapter may not exist any more. Ask what the current pairs are.
What locals & experts say
- CLASS, Hamish Smith (Oct 2024): the trade's verdict on the room, from a writer who was at the original launch, is "There are few, even to this day, more glorious things than the scene on entry, the woodwork, the chandeliers, the long bar with its tartan-sporting bartenders and the musicians all combine deliciously. Every seat at Scarfes feels ringside." His summary of its standing: "I'm yet to meet anyone who's been there who doesn't love it." ref
- Gerald Scarfe, in the same piece: on being asked to lend his name, "When Rosewood Hotels & Resorts first told me it would like to name the bar in its new hotel on London's High Holborn after me, Scarfes Bar, I thought, why? Am I a renowned alcoholic?" ref
- Andy Loudon on how the menus are constrained (The Spirits Business, Mar 2025): he quotes Orson Welles at himself, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations," and describes the four-chapter structure as working "almost like a series of mini menus. Feeling brave? Explore the Fears section." That menu also put two alcohol-free drinks on the main list for the first time. ref
- The record, with years attached: No. 31 in The World's 50 Best Bars 2025 and No. 47 in Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026, plus the bar's own published block of No. 35 in Top 50 Cocktail Bars 2026, No. 21 in Top 500 Bars 2025, and No. 1 Best International Hotel Bar at Tales of the Cocktail 2024. ref
- Local rec: Jeff has it as "A top world cocktail bar." REAL.
Good to know
- Timing: "5 pm until late," seven days, per Rosewood. Nothing opens earlier, so this is an evening room.
- Booking: through SevenRooms on the venue site. The two published phone numbers disagree, so book online.
- Live jazz: nightly around the grand piano, which 50 Best says "attracts some of the city's best musicians." No set times or cover are published.
- Where: through the antique revolving doors of Rosewood London at 252 High Holborn, WC1V 7EN. The building used to be Pearl Assurance.
- Price: $$$$ and there is no way to check. The current menu is published only as an image PDF with no readable prices, so nothing more precise can be given.
- Dress: no code is published, which for a Rosewood bar is worth one phone call if it matters to you.
- Dietary: nothing published. No allergen, vegan or gluten-free statement on the bar or hotel pages. There are two zero-ABV cocktails on the main list if you are not drinking.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5 for Rosewood London Hotel, inspected 24 March 2026.
- Staff training: the bar runs its own Bar Academy, where each member of staff presents on a drinks subject (CLASS). It is why the person taking your order can usually explain the build.
Craft signals (cocktails: dated menu launches out of a working lab)
Two signals. The launches are documented rather than implied: The Spirits Business reported the Long Drawn Out Sip menu on 31 March 2025, the bar director's first, with Loudon on the record that the DNA of the drinks lies in the technical processes and the ability to distil and clarify. The second is the peer verdict, a World's 50 Best Bars place since the bar's tenth year and world's best international hotel bar from Tales of the Cocktail in 2024. A named menu shipped by a new bar director on a dated announcement is a programme, not a rotation.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "A top world cocktail bar" REAL.
Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)
should-visit — A hotel bar with an actual lab behind it, run by a bartender whose CV crosses classics at Satan's Whiskers with modernist work at 69 Colebrook Row and Tippling Club, and who builds menus out of a cartoonist's back catalogue rather than a flavor trend. The current list pairs each of ten Gerald Scarfe caricatures with a hero and a villain drink, which is a genuine creative constraint, and the back bar of Scotch is worth the trip on its own. It is a detour rather than a pilgrimage: No. 31 in the world and No. 47 in Europe are strong but mid-table, the marquee individual award is a hotel-bar category prize, and a $$$$ room that publishes no price is asking for trust it has not earned in writing.