The Roof Garden at the Trafalgar
2 Spring Gardens, London, SW1
020 7870 2900
Good drinks, spectacular views, and a very real possibility that you might celeb-spot A list regulars like Chelsea Clinton and Paris Hilton... How exciting!
The bar at Drakes Hotel
44 Marine Parade, Brighton
01273 696934
A truly cute, intimate dream of a bar. Get a seat near the big bay windows at dusk, toast the sunset with house speciality champagne cocktails, feel generally rather pleased with yourself.
Bar Coast
Arcadian Centre Hurst Street. Birmingham
0121 200 2650
Chic, civilised, hyper-styled food-oriented bar, which boasts a supremely well-rounded spirit selection, and a decent outside drinking space. Draws a chilled, non-sneery crowd.
Watershed Café Bar
1 Cannons Road Harbourside, Bristol
0117 927 6444
Huge, airy space with loft ceilings and spectacular views over the harbour. Good DJs, good drinks: a generally fabulous venue which lends itself to illicit skivey afternoon boozing perfectly. Super-popular - can get a little squashy as the evening progresses.
Atlas
376 Deansgate, Manchester
0161 834 2124
A very groovy industrial-feel venue built into a railway arch; Atlas rates high among Manchester's best designed bars. Good in the winter - but better in the summer, on account of the adjoining patio bar which lures the city's most fabulous from early evening on.
Sosho
2a Tabernacle Street, London EC2
020 7920 0701
From May on, buzzy and bright young things spill out onto the pavement outside Sosho for mid-week barbecues, cocktails and a summer knees up.
Northern Light
Cross York Street, Leeds
0113 243 6446
Terribly modern converted warehouse - as well-executed an example of the exposed-brick, light-wood-floor bar aesthetic that's so ubiquitous these days, as you're likely to find. Its shaded interior courtyard makes it particularly suited to a highly satisfactory summer drink up. They city's premier rosé destination.
Loungelover (right)
1 Whitby Street, London E2
020 7 012 1234
The winner of the Observer Food Monthly's bar of the year in 2005, we harp on about it a lot, but only because it's worth it. A long, light bar filled with mismatched objets of breathtaking loveliness, serving cocktails beyond compare. It's even got its own flaming torches. Just go, OK?
Apartment
Donegal Street West, Belfast
028 9050 9777
Comprising two big, fat glass-fronted rooms, which flood this chic Manhattan-feel bar with balmy June-evening light. Boasts the cosiest leather chairs in le tout Belfast.
Rogano
11 Exchange Place, Glasgow
0141 248 4055
A card-carrying Glasgow institution: a permanently moored cruise liner with an art deco interior and a killer range of cocktails. Gloriously decadent.
