London’s heaving LGBTQ scene will welcome waves of revellers for Pride
Pride in London takes place this Saturday, and already London’s LGBTQ scene is getting ready to welcome wave after wave of revellers as they celebrate their diversity loudly and clearly.
Pride will begin with the celebrated march from Hyde Park Corner at 12pm, which will wind its way through central London to the corridors of power at Whitehall, before a mass celebration at Trafalgar Square with Lewisham’s own LGBTQ icon MNEK headlining on stage, supported by Beth Ditto and Meek.
For many LGBTQ people who have overcome intense difficulties to live openly, just being able to party with fellow LGBTQ people is as much a protest as the march itself. Here, we compile a non-exhaustive list of some of the most iconic LGBTQ venues to check out this weekend.
Royal Vauxhall Tavern
Nowhere on London’s gay scene has a heritage quite like the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, famously the stomping ground of Lily Savage in the 1980s and more recently featured in the movies “All Of Us Strangers” (2023), “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” (2016) and “Pride” (2014). The pub dates from the 1860s and became a haven for London’s gay community soon after the Second World War.
Today, it features a kaleidoscopic entertainment programme of drag, comedy and music from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, but its Sunday Socials of classic drag are particularly evocative of its past, as the likes of Myra Dubois, Charlie Hides and The Dame Edna Experience tread the same boards as Lily all those years ago.
The Two Brewers
South London’s premier LGBTQ bar, The Two Brewers on Clapham High Street, became a big player on London’s scene under the stewardship of its former manager, Jimmy Smith, who led the venue for decades and won numerous awards. It still regularly hosts London’s biggest drag queens and other queer entertainers, while its camp décor, LED lights and glitter wallpaper set the tone with an electric atmosphere.
Two Brewers is laid out over two rooms, with an expansive front bar that serves drinks with ample seating as well as a busy dance floor on weeknights. A spacious backroom is used for ticketed and club events and is regularly packed to the brim on weekends.
The Black Cap
Camden’s The Black Cap is North London’s undisputed number one gay bar, serving the community since the 1950s and was the “Palladium of drag” with performers such as Mrs Shufflewick, Regina Fong, Lily Savage and Phil Starr. Punters were devastated when The Black Cap closed down in 2015, and after a spirited decade-long campaign and £2 million refurbishment, the bar reopened on March 21, 2026.
Now, The Black Cap’s doors are once more open as a modern, fully equipped LGBT venue, with visitors including Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa and drag queens Baga Chipz, Victoria Scone and Tiana Biscuit coming along to support the reopened venue.
Compton’s of Soho
Compton’s on Old Compton Street has been at the epicentre of Soho’s gay scene since 1986, and remains one of the capital’s most popular and crowded meeting places for gay men. The bar is a beautifully furnished dead ringer for a Texas saloon, with polished mahogany, dangling chandeliers, and baroque wallpaper.
Alongside nearby The Duke of Wellington, customers are mostly gay men, making the bars popular and authentic venues for those in the community, while many gay male tourists also flock to them. Although DJs sometimes perform, it’s rarely loud and never a club scene. Instead, Compton’s warm and welcoming hospitality makes it an ideal meeting ground.
The Admiral Duncan
A 200-year-old pub that became a gay bar in the 1980s, The Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street has a pathos that few can match. It was the scene of a terror attack in April 1999 when neo-Nazi David Copeland set off a nail bomb that killed three patrons, among them a pregnant woman, and injured dozens more. Copeland was handed six life sentences, while the Admiral Duncan’s irrepressible community rallied round with solidarity marches as the venue rebuilt itself.
Today, The Admiral Duncan is a luminous, camp and eccentric mainstay of London’s gay scene, as the creme of drag performers entertain drinkers at its long bar. A bastion of why pride matters, the bar features an inscribed memorial chandelier and a permanent plaque honouring the victims of the 1999 attack.
She Bar
London’s premier lesbian bar, She Bar, opened on Old Compton Street in January 2014 and replaced the previous Candy Bar, which was popular with lesbians. Run by the Ku Bar group, which has its flagship bar on Lisle Street, She Bar remains one of the few venues catering exclusively to LGBTQ women, with bouncers keeping a strict eye on who is admitted.
The underground bar features drag shows and cabaret, karaoke, quiz nights, DJs and club nights and is open until 1am five days a week. The bar has been credited with preserving London’s lesbian scene, with newcomers like La Camionera joining them in recent years.
Central Station
Tucked in a side street off Caledonia Road – just a stone’s throw from King’s Cross – Central Station may be the first LGBTQ club for many a visitor to the capital. For years, the bar has had a reputation as a loveable dive, until recently boasting pink flamingo wallpaper, and a regular host of classic drag and karaoke.
The bar spans two floors, with a kitchen and an outdoor terrace on the second floor, while beneath the venue is the Underground Club, with its own risqué events. Central is quirky, off-beat and sociable – a place to socialise with mates after work as well as chat to new people.
Dalston Superstore
A beacon of the East End’s LGBTQ+ scene, Dalston Superstore was founded on Kingsland High Street in May 2009 by DJs Dan Beaumont and Matt Tucker. The venue is spread over two floors and doubles up as a café and community space during the daytime, as it opens at 12pm.
In the evening, however, Dalston Superstore becomes a haven for drag queens, go-go dancers and other performance artists at the cutting edge of London’s queer scene, with rotating art exhibitions and evening shows into the early hours. A place to unwind and unleash, it was closely associated with the nearby Glory until its closure in January 2024.
The Divine
London’s LGBTQ scene suffered a blow when Haggerston’s The Glory closed in January 2024, after its landlord decided to redevelop the property. But founders Jonny Woo, John Sizzle and Colin Rothbart banded together once more to form a new venue in Dalston called The Divine.
The Divine continues exactly where The Glory left off – a sultry, avant-garde performance venue loved by revellers across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. No outfit is too outrageous in this sumptuous nightlife beacon, which boasts high-energy weekend discos, alongside a packed calendar of alternative cabaret, fringe theatre, and famous drag contestants like Bimini and LIPSYNC1000.
Ku Bar
Founded by Gary Henshaw in 1996, Ku Bar started off as a pop-up bar in Charing Cross Station before eventually finding its permanent spot on the corner of Lisle Street, next to London’s famous Chinatown. For many visitors, Ku Bar epitomises glamour and chic sophistication on London’s gay scene, perhaps the best place to dress to the nines and sip cocktails.
Ku Bar offers three distinct spaces for guests, including a bright, slightly 1980s-themed bar on street level, with LED lights and oodles of style, as well as an upstairs cocktail lounge, and a late-night basement. A multiple-award winner, it has adopted the tagline “from Ibiza with love” over the years.
Village
A multi-faceted, four-storey bar in Soho, Village, was recently named by TripAdvisor as the best LGBTQ bar in London. Whether that’s the case depends on the eye of the beholder, but its floors cater for different tastes with a laid-back cafe bar and a high-energy basement pumping the latest club music.
Many people assume the Village is a more recent addition to Soho’s LGBTQ scene, but it has been a mainstay on Wardour Street since 1991, giving it a rich heritage as a gay bar. Its opening, shortly after Compton’s in 1986, and just before the Yard in 1992, helped shift the focus of London’s gay scene away from Earl’s Court to Soho.
The Yard
LGBTQ club The Yard is one of the most popular venues in Soho and has been based at Rupert Street since 1992. The venue has an enticing entrance, as revellers were through a terrace from the street through the glass gates of the street-level bar, before walking up to an even bigger bar space upstairs. More of a socialising spot than a club venue, the bar gets packed at any time of the week.
In 2016, The Yard successfully fought off an attempt by its landlord and developers to oust them in favour of converting the premises into luxury housing. Westminster Council rejected the plans, as did the Planning Inspectorate in two separate appeals, earning the ‘Save The Yard’ campaign a decisive victory.
