The bohemian south Liverpool street has so many options when it comes to choosing a place to enjoy a drink
People enjoying a drink outside Keiths Food and Wine bar on Lark Lane(Image: Photo by Andrew Teebay)
There’s nowhere on earth quite like Lark Lane. This bohemian street is filled with thriving independent bars, cafes and restaurants, from historic institutions that have been serving customers for decades, to exciting new ventures seeking to bring something different to the area.
Taking a walk down the vibrant street you’re positively spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing a place to drink. And with beer garden season well and truly upon us, we thought it was only right to compile a comprehensive guide to all the pubs and bars located on the lane.
Lark Lane always comes alive in the summer, with the smell of BBQs wafting over from the nearby Sefton Park and every beer garden in the area filled with people making the most of the glorious sunshine. This summer the area is set to be busier than ever, as BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival arrives in the park and music lovers spill out onto the lane to continue their festivities after the performances end.
Whether you’ve lived in Liverpool your entire life or you’re only visiting the city for the weekend, Lark Lane has got something for everyone – which is why the ECHO has compiled this guide to assist in choosing the right spot for you. From traditional pubs to trendy bars and everything in between, you won’t struggle to find a spot.
This is the ECHO’s guide to every single pub and bar on Lark Lane, listed in alphabetical order.
The Albert
The Albert is a Lark Lane institution. Many will remember that for a long time it was one of the only drinking places on Lark Lane, before it became a haven of shops, pubs, restaurants and more that we know today. Commissioned by Thomas Gibson, Edward Jones and Robert Cains on June 12, 1879, the listed Victorian pub boasts a Gothic exterior and an even more fascinating history.
Newspaper reports from the late 1800s suggest The Albert, like the former Masonic pub nearby, was once used as a mortuary. Once owned by the pub, the bowling green behind The Albert also dates back to 1884, with the club running up until the 1970s.
The Albert Pub on Lark Lane – pictured Mick Muldoon. Photo by Colin Lane(Image: Photo by Colin Lane)
Customers will also remember the days of the snooker tables on the first floor, pre-world championship matches being held there and the famous snooker players who were regulars. Mick Muldoon, 42, has been manager of The Albert since January 2019 and said the popular pub is “very much cemented within the community.”
Welcoming generations through its doors, The Albert has many loyal and regular customers, as well as people who’ve moved away and returned to visit. Mick said The Albert’s customer base is everyone from families and groups of friends to students, real ale drinkers and now craft beer lovers.
The Albert pub on Lark Lane(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The Albert offers everything from craft beers and cask ales to spirits and “a great pint of Guinness.” With a great team, loyal customers and the history behind The Albert, Mick said he believes the “iconic pub” will continued as “an epicentre” of the community for decades to come.
Bar 25
Located next to Taj restaurant, Bar 25 is a pint-sized pub with an additional cocktail bar upstairs. The lively venue often has live entertainment, including tribute acts and karaoke.
There’s often a party atmosphere inside the bar – especially on weekends and evenings. Bar 25 often has DJs and live music performers, with soul and Motown singers, drum and bass sets and old school R’n’B nights. There is also live spot on TV at the bar for big fixtures and fights.
Blondie’s
Blondies is a quaint little venue with a lot of personality. It arrived at the tail end of 2021 on Lark Lane and has since been packed to the rafters with customers enjoying a drink, a sing-along and live music.
Blondie’s on Lark Lane(Image: Liverpool Echo)
The venue has lengthy and generous happy hours, which run throughout the week. Blondie’s has open mic nights, as well as live music every Thursday and Sunday.
Located on the corner with Bickerton Street, the bar has outdoor seating where customers can watch the world go by on the lane.
With its striking pink and yellow frontage, neon signs and quirky interior design scheme, the venue is perfectly at home on Lark Lane.
The Bookbinder
Located at the Aigburth Road end of Lark Lane, The Bookbinder is the first pub you’ll come across if you’re joining the street from the main road.
The Bookbinder(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Set on the corner of Siddeley Street, this cosy little pub comes to life when the sun shines and customers can enjoy a bottle of wine, pint of Guinness or a craft ale with a view of life on the lane. Inside, the pub is themed around works of literature and every available surface is lined with books.
While this guide is dedicated to the pub and bar offering on the lane, it would be a crime to profile The Bookbinder without mentioning its incredible brunch offering, featuring the ‘breakfast stacker’ which is truly a thing of beauty. Upstairs, the venue has a quieter space where customers can get lost in a good book or play one of the board games that are kept inside. The space is also available to rent for private events.
Experiment 625
Known for vibrant events including ‘drink and draw’ gatherings, this venue impressed the ECHO’s Megan Banner when she paid a visit.
She wrote: “There was loads to see – and they had a DJ on too, you know just to make this miserable Thursday night EVEN better. We danced, drank more wine, then woke up with a banging headache in the morning. And that is exactly why I love this city, it throws all my favourite things in life into one evening.”
Gran Caffe
Paolo and Donato Cillo at the opening of their Lark Lane Gran Caffe(Image: Gran Caffè)
Having opened last summer, Gran Caffe is one of the newest additions to Lark Lane for anyone wanting to enjoy a drink. The Italian café and bar has a great list of wines and cocktails, including spritz drinks and limoncello cocktails.
Owned by Italian brothers Paolo and Donato Cillo, Gran Caffè first opened in Williamson Square as part of the popular Italian Quarter over 10 years ago.
While you’re there, you could order Italian small plates, nibbles or an array of tempting cakes to help provide some ballast.
The Green Man
Previously bar and restaurant The Ink in the Wall and much-loved Chinese restaurant Chy for nine years before that, the building at the centre of the lane was converted to the style of a traditional pub and reopened in December 2022.
Run by the team behind the restored Vines, The Red Lion, The Queen of Hope Street, The Monro, The White Hart and many more city venues, it swiftly established itself as one of Lark Lane’s best watering holes. Its name and décor gives the impression of an Irish pub – fortunately it is without so much of the cliched, cheap tat you would find in frustratingly pale imitations.
The Green Man pub on Lark Lane(Image: Liverpool ECHO)
Its bay windows, white and green paint job and old-fashioned lamp above the door makes it an incredibly inviting prospect. If you want an al-fresco beer, the pub’s outdoor seating catches the end of a summer evening’s light (and it also has a very pleasant sun trap rear terrace) but The Green Man truly comes into its own in the winter.
Once you get past the idea that it is essentially a facsimile of an old pub, it is a very agreeable place to take shelter in the evening. Its combination of wooden beams, rugged exposed brickwork and a welcome mismatch of taxidermy and trinkets on its walls make it feel exactly like such a pub should. When you add in the wood-burning fire upstairs, every base is covered.
Keith’s
All of life, brilliant and bonkers, can be found at Keith’s Wine Bar.
Opened in 1976 by then architecture student Keith Haggis, the bar is the definition of an institution in the trendy Lark Lane area of Aigburth and one that many believe has spearheaded the lane’s journey into the bohemian enclave it has become, bursting with independent bars, restaurants and shops.
Keiths Food & Wine Bar(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
But despite the ever evolving nature of Lark Lane, a huge part of Keith’s charm – and its cult-like popularity – is that it has barely been altered at all.
The familiar – if not slightly tired – red paint work, the basic wooden chairs and tables, the blackboards that surround the bar, with an almost overwhelming number of menu items scrawled across them. These elements all make up this uniquely wonderful spot.
Keiths Food & Wine Bar(Image: Catherine Jones)
In fact the lack of change at Keith’s is such a phenomenon that when the bar got a new lick of paint back in 2016 it warranted an entire news story.
Keith’s is a place that is a little mad at any hour of the day, but gets progressively more bonkers as the day turns into night.
The Lodge
Drinkers outside The Lodge on Lark Lane(Image: Andrew Teebay / Liverpool ECHO)
Occupying a large space on the lane, The Lodge has got a beer garden as well as seating on the street outside the venue. It’s dog friendly and has a weekly quiz night on Wednesdays, as well as DJs playing on Fridays and Saturdays from 7.30pm to 1am.
Food is served until 8pm daily, and until 9pm on Wednesdays so pub quizzers can order a late night meal.
Lost In Lark Lane
Open seven days a week, Lost in Lark Lane is the go-to spot for live music from Tuesday to Sunday each week. Decorated with dark and moody interior design choices, it’s a perfect bolt hole where customers can sit and relax with an expertly crafted cocktail in hand.
The bar offers happy hour deals and an ever-changing cocktail of the week, with live spots on the TV.
Love and Rockets
Boasting one of the biggest beer gardens on the lane, Love and Rockets is an absolute summer staple. The perfect place for sunshine pints, pizzas and loaded fries, it’s got a wealth of long tables with bench-style seating where customers can while away the hours on a summer afternoon.
Love and Rockets on Lark Lane(Image: Submitted)
Located slap bang in the middle of the lane, Love and Rockets is one of a wealth of independent businesses that have established their position as mainstays of the thriving south Liverpool street, giving it such a vibrant and bohemian vibe.
Popular for their nachos and burgers, the bar is also an ideal spot for watching live sport, with plenty of TVs dotted throughout the venue.
A special mention is owed to The Lane Zombie cocktail, which combines Bacardi Carta Blanca and Bacardi Oro, pineapple, cinnamon, lime and overproof rum. Strong stuff.
Maranto’s
The Maranto family outside Maranto’s on Lark Lane(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
While Maranto’s is generally considered to be more of a restaurant setting, it does also function as a bar for customers who just fancy a drink.
Maranto’s is a Grade II listed Victorian building with a rich history. During its tenure on Lark Lane, it has been the home of many businesses including an auto-mechanic, a chemists, plumbers’ merchants, and the Wesleyan Mission Chapel before becoming the venue so well known and loved today.
It’s not only been serving customers for more than four decades, but it’s done so while remaining owned and run by one family. Launched by married couple Steve and Ruth Maranto, who have given more than just their name to the restaurant over the years, it first opened on February 2, 1983 and has been a mainstay ever since.
Milo Lounge
Milo Lounge, Lark Lane
Part of the Lounges group, Milo Lounge is one of the only chain establishments that you’ll find among Lark Lane’s bars – a testament to the strength of independent businesses in this area. The bar and restaurant is often filled with families enjoying a lazy brunch and friends sharing a drink on the outdoor seating, situated at the end of the lane that’s closest to Sefton Park.
The drinks menu is similar to one you’ll find in any other Lounges establishment nationwide – and it’s a great spot on a summer’s day when the windows get flung open to turn the front space into a hybrid of the indoors and outdoors. The accommodating staff and extensive food menu makes it a great choice if you’re looking for a venue to spend a couple of hours in.
Old School House
Undoubtedly one of the most popular spots on Lark Lane, Old School House has got an absolute suntrap of a beer garden to the side of the historic venue, with plenty of tables where customers can spend the day tucking into everything from brunch to pizza and cocktails.
Decked out with hanging plants and a trendy, understated design scheme, the venue also has a roaring pizza oven on display at its heart, where staff turn out a steady stream of Neapolitan style pizzas and Turkish pide. There are also salads, pies and pub classics, offering customers plenty of options if they wish to soak up their drinks after an afternoon in the sunshine.
Popular with families, students and sports fans, the strength of Old School House lies in its ability to carry customers right through from 10am until 1am on weekends – starting the day with breakfasts, coffees and bloody Mary cocktails, before providing the perfect spot for day drinking and live sport, and then transforming into a late-night hangout for cocktails and small plates.
It may have only been open since 2021 but it’s already established itself as a mainstay of the lane.
Petite Café Lark Lane
The trendy little Parisian inspired café has locations on Berry Street and Lark Lane – and jazz fans flock to the south Liverpool site to enjoy live music throughout the week.
Petit Cafe on Lark Lane(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
With an extensive wine list, perfectly served cocktails and a menu of charcuterie and nibbles, you could be forgiven for forgetting you’re even in Liverpool when seated outside this charming spot.
Petit Café opened its latest location on Lark Lane last year, offering live jazz from Wednesday-Sunday every week. Situated on the corner of Lucerne Street and Lark Lane, the new bar has a green and gold frontage that’s become synonymous with Petit’s venues.
It’s a perfect date spot and the service is always impeccable.
Polidor
Another Lark Lane bar that’s inspired by European culture and cuisine is Polidor, located directly opposite Love and Rockets. This cosy venue looks like it’s been plucked straight from the streets of Paris and transplanted onto the lane, with a distinctly European design scheme and menu.
On warm days, staff are able to open out the front of the venue to seamlessly link the inside and outside. Following an extensive revamp last year, the venue underwent a complete menu overhaul, with more emphasis placed on its 1968-inspired Parisian atmosphere.
Rhubarb
Rhubarb is based on Lark Lane(Image: Jess Flaherty/Liverpool ECHO)
Rhubarb is a beautiful venue with eclectic and vintage-inspired décor, and a decent menu of homemade favourites. Outside, there’s a brightly coloured green and white striped awning that wouldn’t be out of place on the streets of many warmer European cities, with little tables where patrons can sit and watch the world go by.
Inside, there’s retro dark wood panelling wrapping around the lower half of the walls, with a soothing blue paint above on some sides, and floral wallpaper on others. There’s wooden tables with trendy marble worktops, and sumptuous booth seating in a vibrant orange hue.
Menus are kept in an old-fashioned briefcase on the bar, while a range of artwork adorns the walls, all adding to the other-worldly feel of the place. It’s quite a small space but it stretches far back in an almost tardis-like manner, keeping the hustle and bustle of Lark Lane at bay.