Whitechapel
Event venue · Tenderloin
600 Polk St, San Francisco, CA 94102
Highlights
Vast Victorian gin lounge with 730+ gins, punches, British bites
Vast Victorian gin lounge with 730+ gins, punches, British bites
"Whitechapel has a limited menu of bar bites, and works best if you’re looking to get a cocktail before or after a show. The place feels like you’re drinking in an old subway tunnel - in a good way - and they have the largest selection of gin in North America." - will kamensky
"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
"While this beloved, ornate cocktail lounge reveres gin above all else, their wide-ranging menu makes plenty of room for other spirits, too — including the nonalcoholic. Their “Winds of Winter” stars Seedlip Spice 94 with chancaca syrup, lemon, pineapple, and Lurisia Chinotto soda." - Vox Creative
"Blessed with an adjacent parking lot, Polk Street's Whitechapel was able to open an outdoor spinoff called the Barbican Garden, a leafy, excellently-distanced, outdoor scene." - Eater Staff
