Gordon’s Wine Bar on Villiers Street ranked 47th among Europe’s top 100 bars

Gordon’s Wine Bar on Villiers Street, near Charing Cross, has come 47th in the European Bar Guide’s new ranking of the 100 best bars in Europe.

The guide assesses bars on qualities such as atmosphere and local culture, as well as the choice and quality of their drinks.

Why London’s oldest wine bar made the European list

Gordon’s opened in 1890 and is London’s oldest wine bar. According to the guide’s entry, it is close enough to a Tube station that drinkers can hear and feel the trains rumble past. The entry describes the long vaulted cellar at the back as “permanently shaded and clandestine”. It notes that the bar sticks to wine, port and sherry, with some poured from wooden barrels, and advises going outside the busy weekend and mealtime periods. Its verdict: “One of London’s finest”.

The bar has been in the Gordon family since Luis Gordon bought it in 1972. It is now owned by Wendy Gordon, and her son Simon Gordon oversees it. The family keeps the vintage interior unchanged on purpose, though it has added outdoor seating on Watergate Walk.

Rudyard Kipling lived in the building above in the 1890s and wrote The Light That Failed there, which is why it is known as Kipling House. Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were among the bar’s visitors and regulars over the decades, as was the writer G.K. Chesterton.

Europe’s top three bars

Szimpla Kert in Budapest took first place. It occupies a derelict building from the post-war years in the Hungarian capital’s Jewish quarter, with roughly eight to 20 themed rooms spread over several floors. Belgium claimed the next two places. Second was Retsins Lucifernum in Bruges, which the artist Willy Retsin created and which also works as a gallery. La Fleur en Papier Doré in Brussels came third.