Britain may be falling out of love with alcohol. As more and more dry bars open across the country, could it be that we are entering a new age of temperance?

Alcohol is omnipresent," says Catherine Salway, handing me something called a Beetroot Coco-tini. "You can't even go to the cinema now without considering having a glass of wine. But I thought: 'There's a way to cut through that, and do the opposite.'"

Salway is 40, and the founder of a new "gastrobar" called Redemption, located at the foot of the Trellick Tower on Golborne Road, west London. The decor is stripped-down and chic: bare brick walls, neon signs and furniture that a neighbouring social enterprise has made out of other people's junk. Sight unseen, you'd think you were in a reasonably typical urban hostelry.

But that's not quite true. The food here is "pretty much" vegan, but what really sets the place apart is a completely alcohol-free drinks menu. The basic idea, Salway tells me, is to offer people a chance to "spoil yourself without spoiling yourself", and provide a sanctuary of sober calm in the midst of a booze-dominated culture. As she sees it, moreover, her business is on the crest of a wave – as evidenced by a handful of similar projects in other British towns and cities, and statistics that suggest our national dependence on the bottle may at last be starting to wane, not least among people under 30.

Until 2011, Salway was the chief brand director for the Virgin Group. She was also drinking a lot, a habit that developed when she first arrived in London in the giddily hedonistic mid-90s. By now, though, an existential hangover had kicked in: "I was overweight, drinking too much, pretty miserable. And I thought: 'I could just sit here grinding away, doing corporate jobs, or do something meaningful.'"

The idea for Redemption came to her when she was holidaying in a yogic retreat in Goa ("very cliched," she smirks). No booze was available – which, she was surprised to find, gave everyone she was with a pronounced feeling of liberation. "It was only by alcohol not being present at all that we were freed from it," she says.

And so, via an initial "residency" at a venue in Hackney followed by the opening of permanent premises here in September 2013, a new business came into being. With backing from two individual investors and over £50,000 of her own money already staked, Salway says she wants to open up two more branches of Redemption in London. In time, she would like to expand abroad.

"Loads of people have told me I'm going to fail: particularly big property moguls from London, and traditional investors – mainly men over 50," she says. "A lot of people said to me: 'You're mad – London runs on alcohol. It's fuelled by alcohol.' And I said: 'Well, not everybody, and not all the time.'"

For all the collective angst about Britain's drinking habits, our consumption of booze does seem to be changing. According to the Office for National Statistics, the share of people who report having a drink in the previous seven days has been falling for at least eight years: 72% of men and 57% of women did so in 2005, but by 2013, the respective figures had fallen to 64% and 52%, and the amount of alcohol consumed by people on their "heaviest" day had also come down.

The ONS advises a certain degree of caution when it comes to these numbers: not surprisingly, there tend to be discrepancies between how much people say they drink, and the quantities they actually put away. It should also be noted that medical problems caused by alcohol are at an all-time high, and all those headlines about rising middle-aged dependency do not come out of nowhere. The 2007-8 crash and subsequent downturn seem to be a factor in reduced consumption, which might undermine claims that Britain has started to see the error of its bacchanalian ways: could it be that we are as thirsty and dependent as ever, but just a bit more strapped for cash?

'I wanted to do something meaningful' … Catherine Salway in her alcohol-free bar Redemption in west London. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian.

As Salway explains, it's generational differences that suggest something really is up. According to NHS data, in 1998, 71% of 16 to 26-year-olds said they'd had a drink in the week they were questioned about their habits – but by 2010, that figure had fallen by around a third, to 48%. "People in their early 20s and teenage years are growing up with parents who get lashed all the time, and that's uncool," she says. "I've also heard that there's a lot of displacement through use of technology. Kids aren't going out to get drunk because they've got so much to stimulate them."

All this has begun to soak into the culture. Not that long ago, foregoing booze during January was a pursuit quietly embraced by a modest number of people: this year, thanks chiefly to the Dry January challenge run by Alcohol Concern, it achieved a new peak of ubiquity (Redemption, Salway says, was suddenly very busy, and numbers remained healthy in February). There is now an online social network called Soberistas, aimed at "people trying to resolve their problematic drinking patterns".

Alcohol charities in such hard-drinking cities as Liverpool and Nottingham now run dry bars, and there are plans to open similar places in Newcastle and Brighton: the latter project is the brainchild of Kevin Kennedy, who once played Curly Watts in Coronation Street, and has experienced life-changing problems with drink. In Norwich, a dry bar called The Drub has started, sampling demand by doing a monthly pop-up. In Chorley, Lancashire, meanwhile, a new business named the Temperance Bar offers a kitsch take on the outlets that spread across that part of England when teetotalism became embedded in the culture of the 19th century; and in nearby Rawtenstall, there remains Britain's only surviving original temperance outlet, whose owners still manufacture booze-free drinks, and make much of a history that dates back around 120 years.

On the night I visit Redemption, among the customers are a trio of twentysomethings, slurping apple mojitos around a long table. Jennifer Moule, 28, and Alicia Brown, 27, are both secondary school teachers; 28-year-old Yassine Senghor manages a club, and is therefore well aware of what a contrast to the prevailing model of socialising this place represents. "The fact that there's no booze makes everything easier," says Moule, who is splitting her time between chatting, and marking Year 11 essays on To Kill a Mockingbird and The Crucible. "You're not distracted: the evening won't turn into something else."

I mention the idea that their generation is less boozy than its predecessors, hoping for some proud statements of 21st-century puritanism. But no. "I had a bottle of malbec last night with my boyfriend," says Moule. "Well, he had a glass, anyway."

"But that's what makes this place perfect," says Brown. "If we were anywhere else, we'd order a bottle, not just glasses."

A few days after my evening in west London, my time at Nottingham's Sobar begins with a bottle of "pre-mixed Berry Bonanza". Located in the city centre, opposite a vast branch of the pub chain Walkabout, this place is much bigger than Redemption, but offers a similar sense of something new: it's more sumptuous than a cafe, definitely not a bar, and though it serves food, it's much less stuffy than most restaurants. The bacchanalia of the notorious Lace Market district, a five-minute walk away, feels like it might be happening on another planet: here, there's a sense of time suddenly slowing down, and conversation taking precedence over everything else.

Opened in January, Sobar is an offshoot of the Nottingham-based addiction charity Double Impact, which assists people in recovery from both alcohol and illegal drugs: £340,000 of the bar's initial finances have come from the Big Lottery Fund, and it makes a point of employing and training people whose lives have been scarred by addiction. Its daily comings-and-goings, though, transcend all that: Sobar's founders reckon that around 85% of its clientele are people with no history of such problems, who have simply been drawn by what Sobar – taglined "0% ABV", which stands for Alternative Bar Venue – has to offer.

Like Salway, the people here have taken advice from the Brink, a dry bar in Liverpool opened by the charity Action on Addiction in 2011. But the initial idea for Sobar came from people whom Double Impact were helping: they said they felt the need for a place that didn't feel treatment-focused, and wasn't housed in anything that looked like it specialised in rehab. Initial discussions suggested a "serenity cafe", which soon developed into something much more ambitious, not least in terms of its city centre location: a former branch of the Nottingham Building Society – the managers of which have leased it to its new tenants for a hugely reduced rent.

'I'm not a big drinker' … Fiona Schmitt (left) with Alice Clough at the alcohol-free Sobar in Nottingham. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

"I've seen other examples of dry bars, and they've been stuck in back streets, or in community centres," says Double Impact's chief executive, Graham Miller, 50. "If that's what people do to start things off, then OK. But they should be aiming at city centre premises."

Even if that puts them next to apparent sources of temptation? "That question comes up a lot," he says. "If you get someone's recovery right, that temptation's not there. What's always there is that human desire to get out and socialise. And this is a high-quality and safe place to do that."

Much of Sobar's night-time trade is driven by events: live music, poetry readings – and, says Miller, sets from DJs. Which prompts an obvious question: will British people really dance when they're sober?

"Oh yeah," he says. "I've been here when they've done it."

Sobar's general manager, 36-year-old Alex Gilmore, tells me her clientele is wildly varied, but when I mention all those stats suggesting that increasing numbers of young people are spurning the bottle, she nods in recognition. She explains that all those recent stories about the reckless online drinking game Neknominate brought in people from the city's two universities, keen to find out about something different from the soused craziness that regularly surges through campuses.

There is also a gender factor. "There's not a vast difference [between men and women]," she says, "but there do tend to be a lot of women in here, during the daytime and at night. I think they feel this is a safe environment. If they want something to eat, perhaps with a friend, they're not going to be surrounded by groups of men piling drinks down their necks. So it's probably easier to get the idea through to them than to men."

So it proves later in the evening, when, in between sampling the food (which is great – without booze, I'm told, the kitchen has to aim much higher than standard burger'n'chips pub fare), I talk to Alice Clough, 27, and 21-year-old Fiona Schmitt, both students at Nottingham Trent University, who have come to Sobar for the first time. "I'm not really a big drinker," says Schmitt. "I've done it already – I started to cut down when I was 20. You have to look after yourself in a city you don't know that well. And I guess I grew out of feeling like shit. I just can't be arsed any more."

At a neighbouring table, I meet four men who've come through different problems with booze and drugs, and are now among Sobar's regulars. "I've been in recovery for 10 months. I used to spend a lot of time in pubs: I liked the excitement and all the possibilities of adventure," says Ian Peskett, 32. "Here, there aren't those dangers." He says he comes here chiefly to have a decent conversation. "But also, I don't want to see the place go under. This is my local."

All of them talk about their experiences with intoxicants, and what they see as the singular effects of alcohol. "I spent 17 years as a functioning heroin addict," says 47-year-old Gary Hamilton. "I held down a job, had a wife and child. But two years of drinking flattened me." Compared to other drugs, they tell me, alcohol's effects on mental health should not be underestimated; it has a habit of sparking anxiety and depression that in turn lead on to even more drinking.

On the city streets, distant shouts and clattering heels herald the start of another night on the town: shop windows in a nearby student area advertise home-delivery booze until 5am, and places offering knock-down prices do their usual roaring trade. Inside here, the background music drifts around the room, people come in and out, and a rather different world carries on, regardless.