Whitechapel

"You might not associate a gin bar with shareable punch bowls, but the brains behind Whitechapel, Martin Cate, has Tiki in his blood having first opened Smuggler’s Cove back in 2009. The similarly encyclopedic cocktail list here includes a selection of four punches – three with gin and one with genever – all of which are winners and more closely resemble how traditional punch used to get made in the 1800s than anywhere else in town. But if you’re looking for something to match a seasonal mood, be it warm-weather or cold-weather, there’s a Sparkling Summer Bowl (Bulldog gin, peach liqueur, ginger, hibiscus, rose lemonade, lemon, lime), as well as a Warm Winter Bowl that was adapted from Charles Dickens’ own hot gin punch recipe (Tanqueray gin, madeira, brown sugar, honey, lemon, spices). Each serves 4 to 6 people generously." - Jay C. Barmann

"Skip the beer and soak up the gin this Super Bowl Sunday at Whitechapel, where you won’t find a TV in sight. This London-style, period pub mimics an expansive underground railway station in 19th century steampunk London and houses the largest selection of gin in North America. Dig into the seventeen-page cocktail menu and you’ll find yourself immersed happily inside this bar all day." - Eloise Porter

"Civic Center-adjacent gin joint Whitechapel goes gay this Saturday and Sunday, showing LGBTQ movies on their big screen, playing a Pride playlist all weekend, and serving two special original cocktails in honor of Pride with 50% of the sales going to the SF LGBT Community Center. The bar boasts an extensive cocktail menu with a focus on gin, and a library of some 400 gins to try. If you want to escape the Pride fest madness for a civilized drink, especially on Sunday, this is a convenient choice." - Jay C. Barmann

"Every long night out needs a starting point. Somewhere you can take over a booth or the whole bar, wait for your friends to trickle in, and maybe get a little drunker than you intended to. And if you’re near the Tenderloin, the place to do that is Whitechapel. This place is a gin bar, and it’s built to look like an old London Tube station, but really feels closer to being in the basement in the Tower of Terror. Instead of thinking about the fake brick walls too much though, focus on their long menu of gin cocktails, including a whole section devoted solely to different incarnations of the martini from the 1840s to the 1950s - we like the Ford cocktail with gin, vermouth, benedictine, and orange bitters." - will kamensky

"Martin Cate’s grand homage to gin is as detail-oriented and over-the-top as his tiki bar Smuggler’s Cove, in a great way. The Steampunk-esque space reads like an abandoned London Tube station turned gin distillery-slash-pub, with period detailing. It’s a cozy, date-worthy spaces with a list of 400 gins to get lost in." - Paolo Bicchieri, Eater Staff