We’re sure you’ve heard of it by now. We wouldn’t be surprised if your feed’s been pickled in them over the last year. Perhaps you’ve even enjoyed the combination yourself, luxuriating in the sheer hedonism of it all.
Yep, the martini and fries one-two punch has become something of a cultural moment, and it’s one that looks set to continue into 2026. Dubbed the ‘adult happy meal’ by bartenders across the world (why has no one called it the Martini Supreme yet?), it’s a pairing that makes more sense with every sip.
As with all in vogue, high-low combinations, there’s an elegant logic to this one: the crisp, botanical bite of a well-made martini cuts through the richness of fried potato, while the salt amplifies the drink’s savoury depth. And if you subscribe to the theory that chips soak up the alcohol, you’re essentially breaking even.
So, get ready to clink your conical glasses to the best places to enjoy a martini and fries in London. Here we go…
Disclaimer: We’re in the UK, so chips are served instead of fries in some of our inclusions. It’s fries all the way for us, though, we’ve got to say…
Rita’s, Soho
Ideal for the NYC holy trinity and a three-martini lunch…
Rita’s brings modern American cooking to the heart of Soho, and it’s become one of our favourite spots in the neighbourhood. Open from 12pm every day, this warm and welcoming restaurant is the ideal place if you’re after a midday martini. Wet, dirty or dry, at Rita’s, it comes any way you like.
The lunch crowd here knows the score: order one at noon and you’re cosmopolitan, order three and you’re either a 1960s advertising executive or having a very good Wednesday. Sometimes, in the martini-addled mind, you can be all three things simultaneously.
Crisp, clean and wonderfully invigorating, the dry martini here is the ideal companion to a light meal. In this case, Caesar salad, a side of fries and a dry martini; a take on the NYC happy meal that’s been called the holy trinity by the Washington Post.
The Chicken Caesar at Rita’s is the platonic ideal of the dish, to us. Copious amounts of Cantabrian anchovies and a heap of freshly grated Parmesan, topped with buttermilk-soaked, secret-spice-dredged chicken thigh… It’s a light meal, as we said. The only drink capable of cutting through it all? Do we even need to spell it out?
Should you like the idea of a three-martini lunch but can’t quite handle the pace, Rita’s serves mini martinis for just £4.25. Cheating? We think not.
Website: ritasdining.com
Address: 49 Lexington St, Carnaby, London W1F 9AP
Read: The Best Restaurants In Soho: The IDEAL 22
The American Bar at The Stafford London, Green Park
Ideal for a martini and fries in those liminal hours…
Sometimes in that liminal space between 3pm and 5pm, you need a pick-me-up. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner – so where should one head? A hotel bar, of course.
There’s always someone drinking in a hotel bar, no matter the time of day: business travellers unwinding, tourists recovering from a day’s exploring, the lone wolf nursing something cold and strong.
Likewise, in those late-night hours after you’ve had dinner and drinks but want one more for the road (somewhere that isn’t a rowdy bar or club), a pit-stop at a hotel bar can often be the answer. Enter The American.
Open noon to midnight on weekdays and until 1am on weekends, The American Bar at The Stafford London serves those borderland hours well. Hidden down a quiet St James’s passage, this bar has been mixing martinis since the 1930s and is something of a London institution. The walls are covered in memorabilia from regulars past and present, lending the place a warmth that feels earned rather than designed.
Whether you prefer gin or vodka, shaken or stirred, dirty or dry, whatever, the bartenders here know their way around a cocktail glass. Of course, we’re not just at The American for their martini. They also serve french fries, and offer triple-cooked chips, too, should you want something more substantial. And if you’re chasing that holy trinity, there’s a main-sized Caesar salad for £20, or a side-sized version for £8.
Sidenote: Last year, to celebrate Independence Day (how very ironic) the bar launched ‘The American Happy Hour’; buy either a Tito’s Handmade Vodka Martini or the American Bar Gin Martini, and you got a side of fries. It didn’t quite fit our liminal time angle, so we’re mentioning it here instead. Here’s hoping for the same thing again this year.
Website: thestaffordlondon.com
Address: 16-18 St James’s Pl, London SW1A 1NJ
Brasserie Max, Covent Garden
Ideal for a pre-dinner opener…
They say you should never go into a meal hungry – ruins your judgment, apparently. Kit Kemp’s Firmdale Hotels have the solution. Every day between 5pm and 7pm, Brasserie Max at the Covent Garden Hotel offers Martini Hour: any martini from their extensive menu plus a bowl of chips for £14.
And extensive is the word. Beyond the classic, there’s a Saketini with Hayman’s Old Tom and Lillet blanc, a wasabi-spiked Samurai, and the Down Under made with Papa Salt gin. Given that Firmdale only has hotels in London and New York, it makes sense they’d embrace a trend born in Manhattan.
It’s the ideal aperitif if you’ve got dinner reservations elsewhere – the gin sharpens the appetite while the fries take the edge off, leaving you in that sweet spot of pleasantly peckish rather than ravenous. Just as it should be.
Website: firmdalehotels.com
Address: 10 Monmouth St, London WC2H 9HB
Cafe François, Borough Market
Ideal for adding Parisian flair to your martini and frites experience…
Cafe François is an all-day Parisian-style brasserie that does the martini and frites union with appropriate Gallic flair. The fries here are, of course, French – thin-cut, twice-fried and served in a silver serving bowl with béarnaise alongside, if you like. They also do truffled frites should you be of a decadent disposition, though for us, the béarnaise brings the requisite indulgence, and the duo is perfect just the way it is.
Their martini list runs to several variations, but we like to stick with their Martini de la Maison, if only for fear of paradox-of-choice-paralysis. That’s Beefeater gin or Mikolasch vodka with dry vermouth and verjus, if you’re asking.
You can, of course, just get your martini and frites fix and stop there. We have ours perched at the bar solo sometimes. But if you’re feeling hungry, upgrade to the Cafe François’ classic steak frites: a perfectly blushing bavette, crispy golden (really golden; they’re lovely) fries, and a rich, peppery sauce au poivre for that extra indulgence. Or, go for moules marinière with frites, their much-lauded rôtisserie chicken, or even lobster if you’re feeling flush. There’s a Caesar salad too, naturally, despite this being France. Sorry, London. Erm, confused now.
Back in the room, and Cafe François is a comfortable, convivial affair. Whether you’re dining solo or with a group, this is one of the best places in London for martini and fries. Keep an eye on their seasonal promotions too, like the Bartender Happy Meal (martini and fries for £10).
Website: cafefrancois.london
Address: 14-16 Stoney St, London SE1 9AD
Oblix East, The Shard
Ideal for happy hour martini and fries with a view…
Oblix East was one of the first bars in London to catch on to the ol’ New York Happy Meal trend and created a dedicated happy hour menu pairing martinis with fries way back in 2024. It would be wrong not to mention them, then.
While that specific menu has since moved on, at Oblix East Sunday through Thursday you can take advantage of sundowners from 5pm to 7pm – iconic cocktails at half price, including their martini. An attractive deal, no doubt, made more so when you learn that they serve truffle and parmesan fries with béarnaise sauce. That said, with a martini we like our fries plain and purely salted, but that’s just us.
Thirty-two floors above London Bridge, Oblix East offers martinis with a view that stretches to Kent on clear days. The dirty martini is everything that you want from this classic drink – just enough olive brine to make the salt cravings kick in, lending it a cloudy pour that mirrors the London sky around you.
Website: oblixrestaurant.com
Address: The Shard, 31 St Thomas St, London SE1 9RY
The Connaught Bar, Mayfair
Ideal for the theatrical experience…
No list of London martini destinations would be complete without The Connaught. With 16 appearances in the World’s 50 Best Bars list (that’s every year of the list’s existence) and counting, the headline act is undeniably the bar’s signature bespoke dry martini. The famous trolley service, where your martini is mixed tableside from a gleaming chrome cart, remains one of the city’s great theatrical drinking experiences. You’ll choose your gin, your vermouth ratio, and your bitters from a selection that rotates seasonally, and then you’ll settle in for a damn fine sip. We like the Connaught Bar martini, made with their house-distilled artisan gin.
The result is a martini calibrated precisely to your preferences, served in a frozen glass that fogs the moment it leaves the trolley. Too fancy for a serving of fries on the bar menu, you’ll have to order tactically here for a true Martini Supreme experience; their sandwiches are served with chips, so we figured it makes the cut for our list. We’re pretty sure they’d let you order a bowl as it is, if you asked nicely.
Those sandwiches don’t come cheap, mind you, starting at £30 for the vegetarian club sandwich. It’s likely the most expensive version of this combination you’ll find in London, but arguably the most memorable.
Website: the-connaught.co.uk
Address: The Connaught, Carlos Pl, London W1K 2AL
Three Sheets, Soho
Ideal for neighbourhood vibes and no-nonsense cocktails…
We’ve been fans of Three Sheets for as long as their martinis let us remember. We love their Dalston venue and love even more their spot in Soho. Owned and run by brothers Max and Noel Venning, they know what the people of London want.
The Dalston original sits at number 13 on the UK’s Top 50 Cocktail Bars list, and it’s also picked up trophies at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards. The Soho outpost carries that same pedigree into a moody, narrow space of flickering candles, dark green booths and soft teal leather. Their approach is refreshingly unpretentious: approachable, well-made cocktails and reinvented classics that people actually want to drink.
Some say you shouldn’t mess with something that’s as perfect as a classic martini. But we’re glad Three Sheets put their spin on it. In our humble opinion, they serve up one of the crispest, cleanest dirty martinis in town. What’s their secret? Belvedere, koseret tea, olive oil, picpoul and sea salt, apparently. You can even get a bump of caviar with your martini for an extra £8, though we’re personally looking forward to caviar ‘bumps’ going out of fashion. Just sayin’.
The fries here are actually mustard chips; British Maris Piper dusted with mustard powder, served with aioli and their house-made Guinness brown sauce. It’s a traditional bar snack done the Three Sheets way. They’re the ideal thing for soaking up some of those martinis if you don’t want to give in to the wind too early, quite honestly.
Website: threesheets-bar.com
Address: 13 Manette St, London W1D 4AP
Noisy Oyster, Shoreditch
Ideal for martinis, fries and a side of seafood…
Cool and oh-so-chrome, this Shoreditch seafood spot has made the martini part of its identity. The interior, designed by Harry Nuriev of Crosby Studios, is unapologetically futuristic: exposed high ceilings, stainless-steel surfaces, weighty pipes doubling as architectural pillars, and an intentional hyper-industrial aesthetic that feels like dining inside a glamorous construction site. It’s monochromatic, metallic, and very Shoreditch, but it works. We’ve always thought martinis had the texture and taste of silver, if that makes sense, and our synaesthesia is certainly stimulated by drinking one in this room.
As any seafood bar worth their Maldon flake would tell you, oysters and martinis have long been natural companions. Adding fries to the equation creates something approaching the perfect bar snack trifecta (sorry, Caesar salad). Wait ‘til you hear about those fries; thin-cut and crispy, served with aioli and prawn head salt, which is very addictive, indeed.
Go for olives instead of lemon and your martini comes with a briny edge that echoes the shellfish. More decisions to make; you can choose from an array of gins and vodkas including Nikka Coffey gin or Grey Goose vodka. Ours is the latter.
Website: noisyoysterlondon.co.uk
Address: 2 Nicholls Clarke Yard, London E1 6SH
Hawksmoor, St Pancras
Ideal for beef dripping potatoes and pre-dinner fortification…
Hawksmoor built its reputation on steak, but their dedicated martini bar at St Pancras is where it’s at for the classic drink and a side of fries.
The bar menu features the restaurant’s beef dripping hash browns, and if you’re feeling fruity, they’re a fine pairing for a cocktail. But if you ask nicely you can get a bowl of fries or those legendary (for good reason) triple-cooked chips: fluffy inside, shatteringly crisp outside, and seasoned with beef dripping and rosemary salt. We’re salivating thinking about them. Hold on, just need to wipe down our keyboard…
…Where were we? Oh yeah, martini. If you’re after that whole New York martini experience (isn’t that why we’re here?), this is probably one of the best places in London to get your fix. The Martini Bar sits within the St Pancras hotel, Sir George Gilbert Scott’s Grade I-listed gothic revival masterpiece, and the room is nothing short of spectacular: soaring decorative ceilings, Gothic arches, ornate carved stonework, mosaic floors and stained-glass windows. Every surface is lavished with gilded stone carvings and intricate paintwork. It might just be the most beautiful bar in London.
No matter how you take it, a menu of martinis is dedicated to variations. We like their Steakhouse Martini – green peppercorn tincture and olive brine give it a splendidly savoury edge, while chardonnay adds a creamy finish. It’s shaken rather than stirred, so comes with a touch more dilution and a slightly softer punch. And that’s just fine by us.
Oh, and they sell a Little Caesar with Cantabrian anchovies for £8, if you’re looking for that magic number again. Oysters too.
Website: thehawksmoor.com
Address: St. Pancras, Euston Rd., London NW1 2AR
The Bottom Line
The martini and fries combination works because it refuses to take itself too seriously while still demanding quality on both counts. A badly made martini won’t be saved by excellent chips, and perfect fries deserve better than warm gin and too much vermouth. London’s best versions understand this balance.
With Hawksmoor still on the mind, we’re checking out London’s best steaks next. Care to join us? Of course you do.
