Swift Soho enters 10th year with new menu
Ahead of its 10th anniversary in 2026, London bar Swift Soho has debuted a new menu to summarise the past nine years.
Mia Johansson and Bobby Hiddleston opened the bar in November 2016, with sister sites following in Shoreditch in 2020 and in Borough in 2022.
The husband-and-wife team left the business last year and handed the reins over to managing director Coral Anderson and head of bars Connor Bloomfield.
The bar’s new menu is called Present and has been designed after a lot of rumination on Swift’s history positioning for the future. Anderson believes that in its ninth year, the bar is at a crossroads: “We’re referencing the past and everything that has gone before us, but also planning for the future. This menu is where we are currently. Next year, it will change. The next year is planning and developing Swift, so that it’s future-proofed for another decade.”
However the menu is not just an excuse to celebrate the bar’s 10th anniversary early. “We’re trying to be quite conscious over the wording, because we’re not celebrating the 10th anniversary now – that would simply be a lie,” she explains. “But we’re celebrating the approach of the 10th year. Especially now, in the current trading environment, entering your 10th year is actually a really big deal for an independent bar.”
While Swift will be different in its second decade, a few key elements will remain. “If you look at any brand that started 10 years ago, it is not the same as when it started,” Anderson says. “We’ve changed in small ways throughout the years, but the ethos and vibe of Swift will never, ever change. We are a bar where you can go for exceptionally made classic cocktails, made the traditional, fresh, vibrant way, using traditional round-building skills.
“We’re not going to become a rotovap bar next year – though, that would be funny. But it’s more about bringing the brand into 2026 and working out what Swift guests want from that experience, because that’s ultimately what is important.”
The drinks
The new menu is divided into four sections – Bright, Delicate, Rich and Stiff – to help guide the drinker, with each category offering five cocktails.
“It was very helpful having the four sections to work from too, because otherwise all of the drinks would have had egg in them, if I had anything to do with it,” laughs Anderson, signalling her preference for the serves in Rich.
The drinks themselves read something a little like the greatest hits of Swift. “There are so many menus we’ve got to choose from, and not just from our Soho site,” explains Bloomfield. “It was like something like 300 individual drinks that we have created over the years. We were just choosing the ones that had the most significance to us.”
The process involved the team picking out a range of cocktails from old menus every week and deciding which were the most important in telling the Swift story. “It gave us a chance to try them out and rebalance them as well, because everybody’s taste is consistently changing,” he explains.
“We’re always trying to improve upon what we’ve done in the past. It was quite a fun little task for us as well, to bring these drinks to our new staff members and going like: back in 2019, we were using this, but now we’re trying with this slightly different flavour, or we’ve reworked the syrup – to punch it up and make it the 2.0 of this particular drink.”
For instance, from the Stiff section, the White Water is a blend of Monkey Shoulder and Ardbeg 10 with coconut falernum and banana. In its first iterations, the drink was made with Swift’s own falernum; these days, the team have conceded that The Bitter Truth’s falernum is a superior option.
The Bright section comprises ‘easy, fresh and vibrant’ serves, such as the Chameleon, a vegetal and smoky serve that pairs Del Maguey Vida mezcal with green chilli, cachaça, lime, coriander and green bell pepper.
Meanwhile, the Delicate section features flavour-forward serves that are ‘refined and layered’. The Ice Maiden features Absolut vodka, Lillet Blanc, pear and Moët & Chandon Brut Champagne, while the Hummingbird is a long drink featuring Akashi-Tai umeshu, Ardbeg 10 and pine soda.
Standing proudly at the centre of the Rich section is the Irish Coffee, which both Anderson and Bloomfield believe is the quintessential Swift drink. “We know and love it,” says Bloomfield. “It’s something we’re always very proud of, and people come to see us for that as well.”
Anderson adds: “I think any good cocktail bar is the result of a person or persons’ dogged pursuit of perfection in a small way. If you look at somewhere like Tayēr + Elementary, their pursuit of extracting as much flavour as possible from various ingredients using various technologies has given them this incredible, distinct style. When we first opened with Bobby and Mia, their particular passion was just making a delicious Irish Coffee.
“I think it resonates with people, because 99 out of 100 Irish Coffees are bad, right? It’s pretty difficult to get a nice one. People like something that is a little bit silly, a little bit retro. Why would we take it off? People love it.”
Bloomfield explains the Irish Coffee is one of the longest-standing drinks that hasn’t needed much adjusting. However, the bar now works with a roastery called Send coffee to create its own “extremely” dark roast Colombian blend, which Anderson says has no acidity to it. “It’s not got any fruit or any lighter notes – it’s just chocolatey, trickly demerara sugary.”
A group effort
Other than through the Irish Coffee, Johansson and Hiddleston’s presence is felt throughout the new menu. “They left last year, but that’s still eight years out of the past nine that they have been an integral part of the bar,” explains Anderson. “That influence will never leave us. It’s so integral to what Swift is, and we would never look to remove it or change it.
“They both brought a love of classic hospitality and of craft cocktail-style drinks, and that’s not going anywhere.”
But the menu is not just an homage to Johansson and Hiddleston’s memories; Anderson and Bloomfield have made their own marks on the drink list. “I made the Praline Flip go back on the menu for purely personal reasons,” laughs Anderson, referring to a serve that combines Swift’s housemade spiced rum, stout, hazelnut and egg.
“But I think there’s ownership over all of them,” muses Bloomfield. “We’re really lucky that we’ve got such a solid team, and I don’t think any one drink on any menu can be put to one person – apart from the Praline Flip.
“We like to be a creative space where people can come in and we can try it together as well. Even if we’re creating something, we’re asking four or five of the team who are on that day what they think. What needs balance? There isn’t one influence on every drink. There are many.”
“A culture of feedback and peer review is very important to us and to the bar,” adds Anderson. “We have never operated by being like: OK, Connor, you are developing this drink, and so and so, you’re developing this drink. You just end up with a disparate menu of 16 people’s ideas, which is not what makes a good menu or an enjoyable experience for guests.”
Swift Soho’s new menu will be available from 26 November.
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