London’s Nightjar celebrates a milestone with 24 imaginative cocktails honoring mixology across four historic eras with its new Recalling menu.
In the candlelit shadows of East London’s speakeasy scene, Nightjar has always felt like a secret told in low voices and garnished with smoke. Now, 15 years since it first flung open its unmarked doors, the bar that helped define the modern cocktail renaissance is turning its gaze backward. On July 14, it unveiled Recalling — a bound, illustrated cocktail menu that’s as much an anthology as it is a drinks list.
Divided into four chapters — The Old School, Mid-Century Mixology, Modern Classics, and Nightjar Signatures — the 24-cocktail lineup maps the evolution of mixology with a reverence usually reserved for leather-bound archives and vintage vinyl. It’s the bar’s first hardcover menu, and each drink gets its own page — complete with illustration and backstory.
The opening section, The Old School, spans the golden age of cocktails, 1899–1933. A reimagined Singapore Sling leads the charge, spiked with Ford’s Gin, rum, Baijiu, jasmine, and cherry beer. There’s a velvety El Presidente and a punchy Horse’s Neck With a Kick, all nodding to the pre-Prohibition palate.
Mid-Century Mixology explores 1934–1980, a time when cocktails reemerged with swagger. One of the bar’s earliest signatures, The Toronto, resurfaces here — a dusky blend of Woodford Reserve, roasted pecan syrup, and Fernet Branca, topped with orange-blossom candyfloss. Elsewhere, you’ll find a five-rum Zombie aged with re-fermented pineapple juice, and a winking Harvey Wallbanger riff that’s more Gatsby than kitsch.
From there, the menu dives into the Modern Classics era — 1981 to 2021 — saluting the likes of Dale DeGroff and Sam Ross. There’s a tribute to the Naked & Famous, featuring olive oil-washed tequila, Montelobos Espadín, and a house-made stand-in for Chartreuse. The Bramble, Penicillin, and Old Cuban also make appearances, reinterpreted through Nightjar’s eccentric lens.
Finally, Nightjar Signatures offers a self-reflective moment — the story of the bar told through cocktails by its own bartenders, past and present. Marian Beke’s Name of the Samurai arrives in a plume of Japanese blossom smoke, with whisky, umeshu, and rice mirin. Tony Pescatori is remembered through Pantapal, a tropical gin number with kalamansi and guava. And today’s manager, Sebastiano Cristofanon, adds the savory Pan Con Tomate, fat-washed with mascarpone and tomato water.
“This menu feels incredibly special,” said co-founders Roisin Stimpson and Edmund Weil. “It pays tribute to cocktail culture and to the legendary figures who shaped it, while capturing Nightjar’s unique approach to storytelling.”
Fifteen years on, Nightjar Shoreditch isn’t just surviving — it’s reciting the whole cocktail canon, one elaborate pour at a time.
For more information, head over to the bar’s official website.
