After making their mark on Manchester, brothers Joe and Daniel Schofield are turning their attention to London, returning to the city where they first built their reputations behind the bar. Schofield’s Bar Covent Garden is set to open in November 2026, carrying with it the formula that has earned the original both critical acclaim and a loyal following. This time, however, the stakes are higher: establishing their name at the heart of one of the world’s most competitive cocktail scenes.
Who Joe and Daniel Schofield Are?
Working with family comes with its own set of complications — and advantages. The Schofield brothers largely sidestepped the former by initially pursuing separate careers, building their résumés independently before eventually joining forces.
Their paths took them through some of the industry’s most demanding bars, including Coupette and the American Bar in London, as well as Tippling Club in Singapore — places where technical discipline is a given and experience behind the stick carries considerable weight. Joe Schofield also collected one of bartending’s rarest double honors. In 2018, he became the first bartender to win both The World’s 50 Best Bars’ Bartenders’ Bartender Award and International Bartender of the Year at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards.
Schofield’s Bar in Manchester
By 2021, Joe and Daniel decided it was time to work together. Manchester became the destination for a project they had been planning for years: a cocktail bar of their own, one whose name would make its authorship unmistakable. Schofield’s Bar was born.
Behind the bar, the brothers draw on the elegance and style of the great cocktails of the 1930s, bringing them into the present while introducing their own signatures selectively. Technique is exacting, yet hospitality remains warm and easygoing — a balance that sounds straightforward but is notoriously difficult to achieve. The approach has earned the bar recognition at the highest levels of the industry, with appearances in The World’s 50 Best Bars, the CLASS Bar Awards and the Top 50 Cocktail Bars UK.
The Move to Covent Garden
Speaking to Manchester’s Finest, Joe and Daniel revealed that they spent three years searching for the right London location. They eventually found it in Seven Dials, the historic neighborhood just a short walk from the theaters of the West End and Covent Garden. The London bar will be larger than its Manchester counterpart and spread across two floors. “Upstairs will be for people who want to come in for a quick drink,” Joe Schofield explains, “while downstairs, guests will be able to spend the whole evening.”
The interiors have been designed to echo the atmosphere of the Manchester original, and the drinks philosophy will follow a similarly familiar blueprint: classic cocktails, both celebrated and lesser known, alongside a rotating selection of seasonal serves. The service, too, will retain the Schofields’ signature combination of technical precision and informality.
For the opening, Joe and Daniel will temporarily relocate to London to oversee the launch themselves, joined by several members of their Manchester team. Later, the brothers plan to divide their time between the two bars, while recruiting London bartenders to build out the new staff. For London’s cocktail drinkers, the opening adds another serious contender to an already formidable bar landscape. For the Schofields, it represents something more personal: a return to the city where much of their professional story began, this time with their own name above the door.
Images courtesy of Schofield’s Bar
