Gordons Wine Bar

Villiers Street runs downhill from the Strand to the Embankment, and about halfway down, behind an unassuming door easy to miss if you are not looking for it, is a cellar bar that claims to be the oldest wine bar in London, trading continuously from the same address since 1890. Whether or not it holds the exact title against every rival claim, it looks and feels every one of those years, and nobody who has been down the narrow staircase doubts the claim for long.

Inside is a low, vaulted cellar lit almost entirely by candles, walls plastered floor to ceiling in yellowing newspaper cuttings and old photographs collected over generations, and barrels of sherry and port behind the counter that are still poured straight from the wood rather than from a modern optic. There is no attempt at renovation or polish here, which is precisely the point; a lick of paint or a design refresh would ruin the entire atmosphere that keeps people coming back.

The food is simple and built to go with the wine list rather than compete with it: cheese boards, charcuterie plates, a handful of hot dishes for anyone who wants something more substantial than a snack. Nobody comes here for a tasting menu or elaborate plating. They come for a glass of decent claret or an obscure sherry in a room that has not been meaningfully redesigned in living memory, plus the outdoor terrace under heated awnings on Villiers Street itself for when the cellar downstairs is completely rammed.

It is still owned and run by the Gordon family, now into a second generation of management, which goes some way to explaining why it has resisted the pressure to modernise into something blander and more profitable per square foot, unlike a great many historic London pubs and bars nearby.

The honest caveat: it does not take table reservations for the cellar, which means queues out onto the street at peak times, particularly after work and before theatre, and a scramble for seats once you are inside. Service can slow to a crawl on a busy Friday evening when the staff are stretched across a packed room. Go early, or go in the afternoon, if you actually want to sit down rather than stand with a glass by the barrels.