Our selection of the best Fulham wine bars

It has been a little more than ten years since Vagabond first opened its doors at this exact Fulham location. In that time their unique self-pour wine machines have been pouring out 100+ wines by the glass for Londoners and visitors. They’ve opened a multitude of locations and started making their own award-winning wine just down the road at Urban Winery in Battersea.

This is the epitome of a Fulham wine bar – relaxed, and cosy, with plenty of throw pillows, and bottles on display. Perhaps not the most unique in character, but certainly distinct and innovative with their wine pour, we rate Vagabond for doing what they do well, and with a capacity of up to 60 it’s a great space for a private party with bespoke tastings.

There’s something a little mysterious about this Fulham wine bar. You have to actually visit to get a real sense of the place. It’s a small spot with an equally quaint terrace out front. Inside, it’s all about atmosphere, mood lighting, and the business of wine.

There’s nothing we don’t like about the Fulham Wine Bar & Kitchen. Its kitchen offers a menu of quality dishes and bar snacks you want to enjoy with a bottle (or two) of wine. You know what they say about simple – you’ve got to do it perfectly, and this place does.

The wine bar & kitchen is dog-friendly, can stir up mean cocktails, and genuinely feels a little hidden and lesser-known in a world of wine bars all claiming to be hidden gems. It’s also a great spot for private personal or work parties, events, and tastings.

Picture this: choose from a selection of over 500 wines including sparkling wines, champagne, and sake – Japanese rice wine. You can enjoy your selection in the restaurant, at the bar, on the terrace (heated when it’s cold out!), or in the wine room. Lastly, pair your selection with a seasonal dish from Olivia’s menu.

Brinkley’s restaurant group is a local, family-owned business and its central Fulham location is an independent bar, restaurant, and wine shop. Inside, the walls are dark but the space is bright with natural light and mood lighting, and complete with relaxed contemporary decor and it shows off its many bottles of wine.

We love Brinkley’s for the atmosphere, the decor that isn’t try-hard, and for being absolutely mad about wine right down to the very fact it serves Japanese rice wine – a chilled daiginjo sake is arguably better than any white wine you’ll ever taste, perhaps a bold and controversial statement, but we stand by it, and we stand by Brinkley’s.

Ombretta & Ante’s is a little hole-in-the-wall spot on the way to Putney Bridge. It has a couple of tables and chairs outside on the pavement, and inside, is small enough to swing a cat in.

The wine bar goes in for a retro rockabilly aesthetic with a mural of Amy Winehouse on one of its walls and a love of serving cocktails in martini glasses. The real stars of the show are the Croatian and Italian wines which can be and should be complemented with small dishes also of the Italian and Croatian varieties.

All in all, a lovely little spot for a date, drinks with friends, or for a private party.

This is technically a wine school, so sue us. You can’t just stroll in and order a bottle of wine, but then, most wine bars are so small that you can rarely do that, anyway. We’ve established that pre-booking is a must, the West London Wine School is on our list because of its stellar wine tastings.

If you’re looking for an activity-based event space or venue, we can’t recommend this place more. Wine tasting definitely counts as a group activity, and if there were doctorates handed out in wine tasting and wine-making we’d enroll and graduate top of the class. On that note, the West London Wine School does offer courses and qualifications alongside event tastings. We feel this is an important postscript: This is another great place if you want to learn all about the wonderful world of Japanese rice wine, sake.