London's Top Activity Bars

London, the centre of the world, still remains famous - despite having over 300 languages, four world heritage sites, 40 West End theatres and the oldest underground railway network in the world - firstly for:

1) Its rain. And secondly,

2) Its bars.

Check them out here:

All Star Lanes | Bowling’s great. Especially when you combine it with cocktails, non-sweaty shoes, a 1950’s vibe, an authentic American diner serving everything from corn dipped Mississippi fish finger sandwiches to chargrilled prime beef steaks, and private karaoke booths. 

Details: Holborn, Bayswater and Shoreditch.

Baranis | A basement cocktail bar with a simple menu of traditional French snacks and a sizeable array of the region’s prime anise-flavoured apéritif, pastis. They also have a gravelled indoor pétanque court, where the goal is to throw hollow metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball. Simple. Unless you don’t have arms.

Details: 115 Chancery Lane, Temple, WC2A 1PP

Bar Kick | “Shoreditch royalty” would be a relatively adequate summation of Bar Kick. Then again, so would “a bustling, rambunctious football-inspired bar offering a menu of epicurean sandwiches, charcuterie and cheese, cocktails, beer, wine and - most importantly - foosball tournaments.

Details: 127 Shoreditch High Street, Shoreditch, E1 6JE

Urban Golf | Golf: hitting a tiny ball with a tiny club into a tiny hole hundreds of metres away behind trees, water beds and sandpits. Urban Golf: kind of just like that, except virtual, and indoors, and warm, with 50 of the worlds best courses on electronic hand, and bar food menu, with drinks.

Details: Soho, Smithfield, Kensington

Draughts Board Game Café | A partially crowd funded board game café in the heart of Hackney, stocking more that 500 games and a much smaller selection of local craft beers, ales, ciders and wines as well as homemade baked goods.

Details: 337 Acton Mews, Haggerston, E8 4EA | A £5 per person cover charge applies

Bounce | Set over 12,000 square feet of a Russell Sage-designed space in Holborn, Bounce features an impressive 17 ping-pong tables, a 40 foot bar serving seasonally-inspired drinks, a DJ booth and a raised restaurant for overlooking the action. In short, if table tennis was fun before the addition of cocktails, music and all of your friends – which it was – then Bounce has done the nearly impossible, and actually made it better.

Details: 121 Holborn, Holborn, EC1N 2TD

Lucky Voice | Karaoke is a legitimate sport. It requires skill, determination, perseverance and finally, alcohol. But it also requires a karaoke bar, like Lucky Voice, where the deal is simple: you pay per person for private rooms, into which you can take all manner of drinks prepared by the on site cocktail bar.

Details: Soho and Islington.

Original Sin | As well as looking like the broody basement bar of a lower NYC whisky refinery, Original Sin is also one of the rare gems which exist to provide you with only one thing: fun. Oh, and a free pool table.

Details: 129 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke newington, N16 0PH

The Four Quarters | A Peckham bar / pub specialising in all your classic misspent-youth arcade and video games like Pong, Asteroids, Tron, Pac Man and Streetfighter II.

Details: 187 Rye Lane, Peckham, SE15 4TP