Plume Wine Bar: the Covent Garden speakeasy in Dickens’s old office

Plume trades on an address rather than a gimmick, and for once the address earns it.

26 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 7DD. The bar calls itself a word-of-mouth wine bar and speakeasy across two storeys in Charles Dickens’s former publishing house, and that is not marketing licence. Number 26 housed the offices of All the Year Round, the weekly magazine Dickens founded in 1859 and which ran until 1895, and he kept private apartments above the office. He worked there and he lived there.

Two floors, and they are different bars

The ground floor is the wine bar. The basement speakeasy is the other half, and it is where the caves are: alcoves that can be requested when you book, though not guaranteed. People book the wrong one and are then surprised, so say in the notes which you want.

Plume is part of the Fables and Company group and sits alongside Grays and Feather, which is why you will find it listed under both names in places.

When it is actually open

Plume publishes no opening hours anywhere on its own site, so these come from its live booking system, checked on Wednesday 9 September 2026, which is the more reliable source anyway.

Tables run from midday, with the last bookable slot in the evening around 21:30. The kitchen closes at 21:45 Monday to Saturday and 20:45 on Sundays, and there is a last drinks call 45 minutes before closing. So this is an afternoon and early evening bar rather than a late one: if you want somewhere past midnight, after dark lists what is still going.

On the day we checked, the slots between 13:15 and 15:30 carried a complimentary prosecco. Offers like that move, but it is worth looking at the booking page before you pick a time, because the same table is not the same price all afternoon.

Booking, groups and getting in

Book online rather than turning up. For parties over six the bar has separate spaces and handles them as group bookings, and if you want to stay longer than an available slot they ask you to email rather than stacking bookings.

Access, which the bar states and most do not: there are two steps up into the bar, and the toilets are downstairs in the basement. If either is a problem, that is worth knowing before you cross town for it.

What else is on that street

Wellington Street runs from the Strand up to Covent Garden, so you are between the theatres and the piazza. Pre-theatre dinner covers eating on a curtain-up deadline, which this end of town is entirely built around.

Best bars in London sorts the rest by what you actually want from the evening, date night covers the rooms that suit two people rather than eight, and central London covers what is within a short walk before or after.