Honey Spencer’s passion for wine has taken her around the world – from London to Copenhagen and Australia to Mexico and back to London again.
The sommelier has put in stints at some of London’s best wine-drinking spots, like Sager & Wilde; headed up the wine programme at Studio Paskin (The Palomar, The Barbary, et al); and leads Bastarda, which brings together the worlds of food, drink and art at buzzy events. In 2023 Spencer opened Broadway Market restaurant Sune with her husband Charlie Sims; more recently she’s been leading the wine list at new Georgian restaurant DakaDaka and was this year appointed the first wine ambassador for glassware company Nude Glass.
With all that experience, Spencer knows Good Wine. So, we asked where she drinks it around London – plus, where she picks up coffee, her date-night pick and where to buy wine for drinking at home.
What’s getting you excited about London’s wine scene at the moment?
As much as I love a deep-and-meaningful over a bottle of something profound, these days I want wine to feel light again – maybe it’s just where I am in life. Wine culture can often disappear up its own decanter, so I’m loving things that feel like fun: proper, dance-like-no-one’s-watching fun. People like Vin Dealer are leading that charge with her chaotic, endorphin-rush tastings at One Hundred Shoreditch, as are collectives like WA Radio and ASM (A State of Mind), who blend wine and music in a way that feels joyous, fluid, inclusive and just a bit ironic.
What’s your favourite wine list in London (aside from your own!)?
For me, the best wine lists are substantial enough to get me excited, but not so encyclopaedic that my partner feels like a solo diner while I spend the whole meal with my head stuck in a self-flagellating tome. The full list at my local, Brawn, always gets my blood pumping, as does the list at Sager & Wilde on Hackney Road, who are helpfully back to the cash margin model they opened with. If I’m venturing out of my Hackney bubble, Isa Bal’s list at Labombe by Trivet is a thing of magnificence.
What’s your go-to takeaway order? And what wine would you pair with?
I’m a big sucker for fleshy, salty whites and sushi. Chenin blanc from Anjou, or rieslings with some age and lees ageing work well. I also love spicy dishes like laksa or Sri Lankan curries with amber wines from Georgia. And fish’n’chips with a bottle of proper traditional method English cider is one of life’s greatest underrated matches.
What’s a pub with a better-than-it-needs-to-be wine list?
I get asked all the time about this and the truth is no one does it better than Nick Gibson at The Drapers Arms Islington. Nick strikes me as a wine obsessive who happens to be a publican rather than the other way around. Other noteworthy mentions are The Red Lion & Sun in Highgate, The Camberwell Arms, The Clarence Tavern and The Plimsoll – all stellar pubs worth a visit for the wine alone.
Where do you get coffee?
I tend to consume all my coffee before I leave the house in the morning – and a lot of it, I have two small children. But on the rare occasion I’m out in the wild and not caffeinated up to my eyeballs, Omotesando is worth a detour if I have meetings in town, or Bar Italia on Frith Street; not necessarily for the coffee itself, but because it gives 1940s film set 24 hours a day.
It’s date night. Where are you heading?
Apéro has to be at Sune. At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, we make the best Martini in town. Then it’s on to dinner at Planque in Dalston. We get overexcited and end up the other side of town at Kioku bar at The Owo on Whitehall quite possibly drinking far too much saké, and then it’s back east for an ABF (Absolutely Bloody Final) and some people-watching from a couple of bar stools at The Sun Tavern. If we get a second wind of hunger, we’ll stop in at Anatolia on Mare Street for an İskender kebab before reluctantly turning in.
Where do you buy wine to drink at home?
I love our neighbours Wingnut just off Broadway Market; they always have wines I’ve not tried. Our local grocer in Victoria Park has a seriously good selection which always takes me by surprise.
What’s a London hidden gem more people should know about?
In my opinion, too many people know about Gordon’s Wine Bar in Embankment, and not enough people know about The Winemakers Club under the Holborn Viaduct, which is more impressive, more cavernous and the wine selection – curated by owner and wine merchant John Baum – is in a league of its own.
What’s your bucket list wine list?
For all my goings on about unnecessarily lengthy wine tomes, I’d find it hard to keep calm if was handed the wine list at The French Laundry in California – provided someone else was picking up the bill, of course.
