Shoreditch Independent Record Listening Room: Two-Bar Route

A good Shoreditch independent record listening room night is really two rooms and a record shop, all within a fifteen-minute walk. Mad Cats, which opened on Redchurch Street in late 2024, runs a system of 22 bespoke speakers through a dark, wood-heavy room. Equal Parts on Hackney Road, opened by Michael Sager in 2023, was named Time Out's best bar in London for 2025. Rough Trade East, inside the Old Truman Brewery off Brick Lane, is where the evening should start.

Rough Trade East opened in 2007 in the Old Truman Brewery and remains one of the largest independent record shops in London. Its long floor of new releases, staff picks and reissues gives you a feel for what East London selectors are playing this season, and the shop regularly hosts in-store performances and album signings on its small stage. Thirty minutes here is a quick education before an evening of hearing records on serious hi-fi.

Treat it as research rather than shopping. Note two or three albums that catch your ear at the listening posts, then ask the bartender later whether the selector carries anything similar. Regulars at both bars on this route tend to be record buyers themselves, and a conversation that starts with what you found at Rough Trade usually ends with a recommendation you would never have found alone.

Mad Cats sits at the Brick Lane end of Redchurch Street and takes its cue from Japanese listening bars, then adds Shoreditch's late-night energy. The system is unusual: 22 bespoke speakers built around Bliesma mid-range domes and ribbon tweeters, with handsome mahogany subwoofers that double as the room's main décor. Reviewers describe the lighting as close to a power cut, which is the point, because your eyes stop competing with your ears.

The music runs from funk to electronica depending on who is selecting, always from vinyl. Drinks lean on sake, shochu spritzes and a tight cocktail list, and the kitchen sends out Lebanese-Japanese small plates. The Infatuation singled out the beef short rib with mole and a cauliflower salad. Sit at the bar rather than a table if you can, since it puts you closest to the decks and the bartenders are the best guides to the night's records.

Equal Parts is a ten-minute walk north on Hackney Road, just up from the original Sager + Wilde wine bar. Michael Sager built it with sound and drinks as equal halves of the brief, which explains the name. The room has Japanese wood panelling, a zinc bar top, Venetian blinds and raw plaster walls, lit dimly enough that the floor-to-ceiling stack of records glows behind the bar like a library.

Many of those records are pressings you cannot stream, chosen personally by Sager, and the sound runs through an Audio Gold system. The drinks list focuses on aperitifs, amaro and agave, which suits a last round after Mad Cats' sake. Since the Time Out award, Equal Parts draws a crowd on weekends, so arrive earlier if you want a stool, or keep it for a weeknight when the room is quieter and the records can carry the evening.

Most people do the route south to north: Rough Trade East in the late afternoon, dinner and a first set at Mad Cats, then Equal Parts for a nightcap. That order works because Mad Cats feeds you and Equal Parts is better for low conversation at the end of the night. Reverse it only if you are arriving after dinner, in which case Equal Parts' aperitivo list is a good opener and Mad Cats' later finish suits the second half.

Skip the second bar if the first one is perfect. Listening bars reward staying put through a whole side or a full DJ set, and the temptation to bar-hop can make you hear ten minutes of everything and nothing properly. A good test: if the selector has played two records you wanted to Shazam, stay for another hour.

Open the Karpo APP and describe the night: Shoreditch, two people, dinner included, prefer soul and jazz to techno, done by midnight. Karpo replies with a short list of listening rooms and record shops that fit, with a line on why each is there, and you can save the plan or send it to whoever you are meeting. It is a quicker way to narrow down an area with dozens of bars that play records in some form.

Karpo works from what you ask and from published information about each place. It does not know tonight's selector, how many stools are free at Equal Parts, or whether Rough Trade has an in-store set on. Treat the list as a starting route and check each venue's own channels for that evening's programming.

Listening bars in this part of London share a code. Keep conversation low during quieter tracks and save the shouting for the pavement outside. Requests are a conversation with the bartender, not a demand to the selector. Photos of the decks are fine without flash, and filming a whole song is not. If you are a group of five or more, Mad Cats is the more forgiving room, since Equal Parts is built for couples and small groups along the bar.

Redchurch Street gets busy with shoppers until early evening and with bar crowds afterwards. Walking north on Shoreditch High Street toward Hackney Road is well lit, but cutting through the quieter backstreets late at night is less pleasant, so stick to the main roads between bars.

Shoreditch High Street Overground station is the closest stop to Rough Trade East and Mad Cats, and Hoxton station is handy for Equal Parts if you are finishing the night there. Liverpool Street, about fifteen minutes' walk south, has the most late connections on the Central and Elizabeth lines. Night buses run along Shoreditch High Street and Hackney Road.

If you only have one evening and limited energy, choose by mood. Mad Cats suits a celebratory dinner where the music is part of the meal. Equal Parts suits a slower night of good drinks and records you will remember. Rough Trade East is the one stop that works any afternoon, and the records you buy there will remind you of the night later.