Swift Soho
The Irish coffee is the one Bobby Hiddleston built at the Dead Rabbit in New York, and it is kept ready so it reaches you in seconds instead of being made while you watch.
Why go
Swift opened on Old Compton Street in November 2016, put together by Mia Johansson and Bobby Hiddleston with Roisin Stimpson and Edmund Weil of Nightjar and Oriole (BigHospitality). It works as two rooms. The ground floor is quick and bright, does oysters and filled brioche rolls at the counter, and holds the classics including the Irish coffee. The basement is the other half: dark booths, live music at weekends, and a whisky list that 50 Best counts at more than 250 bottles and Top 50 Cocktail Bars at more than 300. It was thirtieth in the World's 50 Best Bars in 2022 and forty-first in 2019, and the awarding body ties both placings to this address rather than to the group. Johansson and Hiddleston sold their shares in summer 2024 and Coral Anderson, who has been there since the first day in 2016, runs it now (CLASS).
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Irish coffee, upstairs, where it lives. Oysters and a brioche roll at the ground-floor counter. A dram off the basement list. Whatever the downstairs menu is running, since it is built around a theme rather than assembled from classics.
- Avoid: arriving downstairs before 5pm, when the basement is shut. Bringing a group to the basement without booking. Mixing this up with the Shoreditch or Borough bars, since the 50 Best placing is Old Compton Street's alone.
What locals & experts say
- The World's 50 Best Bars, on the split between the floors: "A bright, ground-floor bar offers sunny pours, filled brioche rolls and get-them-before-they're-gone oysters, while downstairs is all dark booths and dark spirits, with more than 250 whiskies behind the bar." No.30 in 2022, No.41 in 2019. ref
- David Paw for The Infatuation, in 2017: "Swift Bar is one of the best bars to have opened in ages in Soho... At street level, there's a shiny Art Deco-style bar that's good for grabbing a beer or sipping martinis, while downstairs there's a moody whiskey bar with red booths and basement vibes aplenty." It is the only bylined critical piece anyone has filed, and it is nine years old. ref
- Top 50 Cocktail Bars, on which floor the famous drink is on: the upstairs menu "brings together much-loved classics as well as popular Swift serves in one place, particularly the bar's Irish Coffee which is like no other in the world." ref
Good to know
- Where: 12 Old Compton Street, basement and ground floor. One FSA registration covers both.
- Sites: three bars in the group. This one is the original. The others are Shoreditch, on Great Eastern Street, which has its own entry here, and Borough.
- Timing: the basement opens at 5pm, seven days, with live music at weekends. Happy hour runs Monday to Thursday before 6pm.
- Booking: recommended for the basement. The ground floor takes you as you come.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 20 May 2026, all three components clean. ref
Jeff's take (his words)
Nothing here is Jeff's. His saved-places export carries an empty Note for Swift Soho, so jeff_note stays empty. The master row said the famous Irish coffee is downstairs; every source read for this entry puts it on the upstairs menu, and that correction came out of checking the cell rather than repeating it.
Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)
should-visit — The Irish coffee is the reason. Bobby Hiddleston built that drink behind the bar at the Dead Rabbit in New York and brought it here in November 2016, and it is served from the ground floor so it lands in seconds rather than being assembled while you wait. Downstairs is a different room and a different job: booths, live music at weekends, and a whisky list somewhere between two hundred and fifty and three hundred bottles depending on which of the two counts you take. That is depth rather than rotation, and it is the right axis for a bar whose best drink has deliberately not changed. It was No.30 in the World's 50 Best Bars in 2022 and No.41 in 2019, both placings tied by the awarding body to this address rather than to the brand. It stops short of must-visit because that placing is four years old, the founding couple sold their shares in 2024, and nobody has filed a bylined review since 2017.