Summer is here and we’re in the mood for a good old-fashioned party. Say what you like about London (yes, it’s expensive, yes, it’s polluted, yes, it’s hot on the underground) but no one does queer nightlife quite like the capital.

After all, London’s queer nightlife scene goes back over a hundred years. The Cave of the Golden Calf, which opened in 1912 in London’s Heddon Street, is widely thought to be our first gay nightclub. Fast forward a few decades and queer nightlife culture exploded in London, finding its home in Soho and Vauxhall. The iconic Heaven opened its doors in ‘70s. Trade, The Village, G-A-Y, and many others came along in the ’90s.

Sadly, a number of queer bars and clubs closed in the 2010s — in fact, 60% of London’s LGBTQ+ spaces reportedly shut their doors between 2011 and 2021. London is still home to some of the most beloved, iconic queer clubs in the world — and it’s still constantly welcoming new LGBTQIA hotspots to the scene. There’s never been a better time to support queer spaces.

As Nadine Noor, co-founder of London’s Pussy Palace, recently told us, “There’s still so much stigma and discrimination all over the world in varying degrees – right now, we’re seeing this snapback to conservatism and fascism. We still need spaces to come together, to converse, to dance, to build ideas.”

If you’re on the hunt for a safe, welcoming place to let loose, these are some of the city’s very best queer bars and clubs to add to your going out out list.

Courtesy of La Camoniera

La Camionera

La Camionera is the latest addition to London’s lesbian bar scene. It all began when the bar launched a very mysterious Instagram page earlier this year. It turns out, the mysterious new bar would open up in the basement of Off Broadway, London’s NYC-inspired jazz bar in East London.