Down a staircase off the sleek lobby of One Hundred Shoreditch, past guests in architectural coats and the occasional Soho House spillover, is Seed Library: a lo-fi cocktail bar with high-concept roots. This is the work of Ryan Chetiyawardana — Mr Lyan to anyone who’s followed the evolution of London’s drinks scene over the past decade. But unlike his previous ventures (White Lyan, Dandelyan, Lyaness), this one whispers rather than shouts.

The room is dim, plush, and welcoming in that retro-Scandi way — like a 1970s recording studio reimagined by someone who reads Kinfolk. There’s corduroy, curved corners, and soft amber lighting. The soundtrack is strictly vinyl, and the bartenders know how to make a coriander martini sound like something you were always meant to drink.

Don’t expect molecular theatrics or dainty garnishes. The drinks at Seed Library are clever but quietly so. A negroni arrives tinged with smoked cherry. The martini leans herbal, not cold and aloof. Everything is precise, confident, and just left of classic. It’s the kind of cocktail list that makes you want to sit up straighter — or, better, lean back and stay a while.

There’s food, too — anchovy twists, pickled snacks, an excellent little dish of fried chicken that vanishes before the second round arrives. The wine list is short and natural-leaning, and the crowd reflects the bar’s tone: Shoreditch-adjacent creatives, mid-career designers, a well-dressed solo reader at the corner booth.

It’s a neighbourhood bar for people whose neighbourhoods stretch from Copenhagen to Tokyo. A space designed not to dazzle but to disarm. And it works — you come for one drink, and stay for three, wondering why more cocktail bars don’t sound like this.

Seed Library
100 Shoreditch High St E1 6JQ
seedlibraryshoreditch.com

Photo: Caitlin Isola