A few doors along from Eltham ‘spoons, yet a million miles way in practically every sense except that they both sell beer. Granted, it has a few nailed on (in some cases literally) craft pub clichés: pump clip badges, white tiles, some kind of artisan pork pie offering under a glass cake display and a … More The Rusty Bucket, Eltham, SE9
If there were any pub that illustrates what I’m trying to do with this book, this would be it. The White Hart Brew Pub in east London is a fascinating place that displays the qualities I’d seek in a pub without ever being one I’d recommend people drink in. It has everything and nothing. A … More The White Hart, Whitechapel, E1
A difficult one, this. A bit like supporting Man United against some other team you really dislike. I’d like it to be good, yet so much work has gone in to make it anathema to decent taste that I’m finding it heavy going. And that’s with a particularly strong beer list at my disposal standing … More Mother Kelly’s, Bethnal Green, E2
As cautionary tale dispenser Hilaire Belloc once said: “When you have lost your Inns, drown your empty selves. For you will have lost the last of England.” But should that unthinkable scenario pan out, give thanks and rejoice there is someone out there who has prepared for that eventuality. I give you The Draught Horse. … More The Draught Horse, No Fixed Abode
It’s hard not to like The Gowlett. Hard, that is, unless you’re the clown of a neighbour who moved into the vicinity and promptly started moaning about the noise, a move that threatened the pub’s future. Such entitled cretins need to be summarily issued with a compulsory purchase order and shipped out to Frinton-on-Sea or … More The Gowlett, Peckham, SE15
If a pub has ever reflected (or even merely followed) the fortunes of an area, none can have done so more accurately than The Axe. Once a dreadful Watney’s hole with toilet tiles for an exterior, it caught the mood of European integration in the early 1990s and became Jan’s, a Belgian beer pub that, … More The Axe, Stoke Newington, N16
Amazing how places can change. Once a late-drinker repository hidden in the outer reaches of Stamford Hill borders, the Jolly Butchers is now one of London’s premier beer purveyors. In much the same way as this Tubeless area of north London has undergone a not universally welcomed transformation in recent years, so has this humble … More The Jolly Butchers, Stoke Newington, N16
Housed in a delightful corner plot, adorned with hanging baskets in bloom, sporting immaculate crimson velour banquettes and boasting quasi Art Deco stained glass windows, The Golden Eagle on Marylebone Lane in London’s affluent W1 seems quite the metropolitan idyll. Its bold red paintwork, Fleur-de-Lys patterned carpet and idiosyncratic decorative features provide just enough diversion … More The Golden Eagle, Marylebone, W1
The only constant is change and change is not always for the better. Nowhere is this amalgam of clichés more apposite than the remonikered Queen Charlotte, a once fine if slightly brash boozer on the corner of Charlotte and Goodge Streets. In truth, not much has changed. But sometimes it doesn’t take much to go … More The Queen Charlotte (formerly The Draft House Charlotte Street), Fitzrovia, W1
If there were ever a cast-iron reason for banning piped music from public houses, this is it. How can such an otherwise exceptional pub as Marylebone’s The Barley Mow allow its gloriously convivial atmosphere to be blighted by the excruciating banality of pre-retirement Phil Collins? Thankfully, that’s the only insult to all that is human … More The Barley Mow, Dorset Street, W1
