Best-of list · Sports Bars
Where to watch the Six Nations rugby in a bar that gets it right — from London boozers to New York expat pubs. Our editors' picks for the best atmosphere.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
The Six Nations is the best six weeks in rugby, and the best bars to watch it understand that. We're talking about venues where the atmosphere starts building before the warm-up, where the crowd knows the difference between a scrum and a lineout, and where the sound system gets turned up at the right moments. We've covered London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Cardiff, and the transatlantic outposts in New York where the Six Nations following is just as serious.
London has more Six Nations bars than anywhere outside the competing nations themselves. The challenge is finding ones where the crowd is genuinely invested rather than just present. These are the London pubs that earn their reputation every February and March.
How we picked
The best Six Nations bars have one thing in common: they treat rugby with the same seriousness as their most committed regulars. That means proper early opening times, screens you can actually see from every seat, and a crowd that comes for the rugby rather than the social occasion. Book ahead for any England, Ireland, or France fixture — those are the ones that fill up first. Scotland and Wales matches are quieter to get into and often produce better atmospheres because the crowds that do show up are the genuinely committed ones.
Sofia grew up watching Six Nations matches in a south London pub with her Welsh father and has been tracking the best rugby bars across Europe ever since. She has opinions about the difference between a rugby pub and a pub that shows rugby, and she will share them unprompted.
Last reviewed 2026-02-07 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.