Pub entertainment in London
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Churchill Arms
This traditional English pub is renowned for its Winston memorabilia, chamber pots, golf bags suspended from the ceiling and butterflies under glass. It’s a favourite of both locals and tourists (what either group makes of the Winnie/lepidopterous connection is anyone’s guess), and you’ll have to fight your way through scrums of punters at the horseshoe-shaped bar for a pint. The attached conservatory has been serving excellent Thai food for two decades.
reviewed
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Ten Bells
This landmark pub, opposite Spitalfields Market and next to the area’s striking church, is famous for being one of Jack the Ripper’s pick-up joints, although these days it’s about as far from a museum piece as you can get. In fact, ask most of the young and hip crowd about the history, and few will have any idea that this beautifully decorated, airy and friendly place has anything sinister about its Victorian past.
reviewed
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Prospect of Whitby
Once known as the Devil’s Tavern, the Whitby is said to date from 1520, making it the oldest riverside pub in London. It’s firmly on the tourist trail now, but there’s a smallish terrace to the front and the side overlooking the Thames, a decent restaurant upstairs and open fires in winter. Check out the wonderful pewter bar – Samuel Pepys once sidled up to it to sup.
reviewed
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Captain Kidd
With its large windows, fine beer garden and displays recalling the hanging nearby of the eponymous pirate in 1701, this is a favourite riverside pub in Wapping. Although cleverly done up, it actually only dates back to the 1980s.
reviewed
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George & Dragon
Once a scuzzy local pub, the George was taken over and decorated with the owner’s grandma’s antiques (antlers, racoon tails, old clocks), cardboard cut-outs of Cher and fairy lights, turning this one-room pub into what has remained the epicentre of the Hoxton scene for more than a decade. Some of the best DJ nights in London are on offer here, with cabaret performances taking place on window sills. It’s total fun and mindless hedonism. Expect mustachioed media types and fashion-forward youths. Definitely not a place for a quiet pint, there’s a great jukebox, and it tends to get packed out at the weekends.
reviewed
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Princess Louise
We might have used the word gem before, but we take all of the other instances back. This late-19th-century Victorian pub is spectacularly decorated with a riot of fine tiles, etched mirrors, plasterwork and a stunning central horseshoe bar. After an eight-month renovation, it’s looking even better. The old tiles and plasterwork have been scrubbed up, and Victorian wood partitions have been reinstated, giving punters nooks and alcoves to hide in. There are Corinthian columns too, would you believe? Beers are Sam Smith’s only, and, at £2 a pint, it’s a wonder anyone ever leaves.
reviewed
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Lamb & Flag
Good pubs can be hard to come by in over-touristy Covent Garden, but the Lamb & Flag makes up for any character or soul the area has lost – the interior is more than 350 years old, with creaky wooden floors and winding stairs, there’s live jazz on Sunday afternoons and, come sunshine or summer evenings, it’s a miracle if you can approach the bar for all the people crowding outside. Its setting is equally charming: the main entrance is on top of a tiny cobbled street, but you can also reach it from the backstreet donkey path that’ll make you think of Victorian England.
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Jerusalem Tavern
Starting life as one of the first London coffee houses (founded in 1703), with the 18th-century decor of occasional tile mosaics still visible, the JT is an absolute stunner, though sadly it’s both massively popular and tiny, so come early to get a seat. There’s good lunch food and, this being the only London outlet of St Peter’s Brewery (based in North Suffolk), it has a brilliant range of drinks: organic bitters; cream stouts; wheat and fruit beers – many of which are dispensed in green apothecary-style bottles.
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Trafalgar Tavern
Lapped by the brown waters of the Thames, this cavernous pub with big windows looking onto the river is steeped in history. Dickens apparently knocked back a few here – and used it as the setting for the wedding breakfast scene in Our Mutual Friend – and prime ministers Gladstone and Disraeli used to dine on the pub’s celebrated whitebait, when the start of the season was so keenly anticipated that Parliament would suspend sitting for a day. Try to make a beeline for a seat in the big bay window if you can.
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Seven Stars
Even though it’s packed with lawyers in the after-office booze rush hour, the tiny Seven Stars is still a relative secret to many Londoners. Sitting behind the Royal Courts of Justice and originally a sailors’ hang-out, this is the place to come for real ale and ravishing game dishes (the eccentric landlady and chef, Roxy Beaujolais, is a former TV chef and raconteur).
reviewed
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Cross Keys
Covered in ivy and frequented by loyal locals who come here for pints of Young’s and spicy fry-ups, the Cross Keys is Covent Garden’s tourist-free local pub. Eccentric landlord Brian shows off his pop purchases as bar decorations (such as his £500 Elvis Presley napkin); brass pots, kettles and diving gear hang off the ceiling; and the punters range from bar props and fruit-machine (poker machine) devotees to Co-vent Garden professionals, all of whom spill onto the pavement and outside tables on summer days.
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Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
The entrance to this historic pub is via a narrow alley off Fleet St. Locals over its long history have included Dr Johnson, Thackeray and Dickens. Despite (or possibly because of) this, the Cheshire feels today like a bit of a museum piece, and a fairly shabby one at that, with sawdust on the floors and a not inconsiderable smell in its warren of bars now that the cigarette smoke has disappeared. Nevertheless, it’s one of London’s most famous pubs and it’s well worth popping in for a pint.
reviewed
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Red Lion
This stalwart of the scene is run by the team behind both 333 and Mother Bar, and despite being spitting distance from Hoxton Square, it’s well enough tucked away down a side street to avoid being overrun by the suburban crowd that now dominates the area at the weekends. Inside it’s pure kitsch fun, with a well-balanced mix of down-to-earth and trendy folk. The top-floor roof terrace is a real draw.
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Old Blue Last
Frequently crammed with a hip teenage-and-up crowd of Hoxtonites, this beautiful old corner pub’s trendy credentials are courtesy of Vice magazine, the bad-boy rag that owns the place. It hosts some of the best Shoreditch parties and has a rocking jukebox.
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Mayflower
Northwest of Deptford in Rotherhithe, this 15th-century pub, originally called the Shippe but rebuilt and renamed the Spread Eagle in the 18th century, is now named after the vessel that took the pilgrims to America in 1620; US visitors might want to make their own pilgrimage here. The ship set sail from Rotherhithe, and Captain Christopher Jones supposedly charted out its course here while supping schooners. There’s seating on a small back terrace, from which you can view the Thames.
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Endurance
A Soho favourite, the Endurance has a retro jukebox that’s full of indie hits, there’s good wine and draught ales to be savoured, and there’s decent food too; Sundays tend to be very quiet. Often the crowd spills outside in the evening, and daytime drinks afford good views of Berwick Street Market buzz.
reviewed
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Scarsdale Arms
Not the easiest pub in London to find, this historic and verdant Georgian space south of Kensington High St and just off Earl’s Court Rd was (so they say) originally built as quarters for the officers of Napoleon’s conquering army. Dream on, Bonaparte. Today it’s an attractive and stylish pub with prints and oils in gilt frames, heavy drapes at the windows and stained-glass snob screens. Fuller ales are on tap and there’s a fully fledged restaurant behind.
reviewed
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Newman Arms
A lovely local that is also one of the few family-run pubs in central London, Newman Arms is a one-tiny-room affair with a 100-year history, good music, great beer and loyal locals who mingle with the media types in the evening. George Orwell and Dylan Thomas were regulars in their day, and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom was filmed here in 1960. There’s also an excellent pie room – the Famous Pie Room – upstairs.
reviewed
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Greyhound
The old dog certainly kennels in a pedigree neighbourhood, with a verdant square of blue-plaqued Georgians (‘John Stuart Mill lived here’) opposite, and a turning nearby named Thackeray St after the satirist who (supposedly) imbibed here. With the Daily Mail and Evening Standard offices just a lurch and stagger away, the Greyhound’s inky tradition lives on, and it’s not a bad place for stories (both real and imagined).
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Urban Bar
You probably wouldn’t travel far or wide for this boozer with its distinctive tiger-striped livery. But it’s an unmissable (to say the least) and convivial Whitechapel landmark, just opposite the tube. Definitely a pub (with a good range of beers) but somehow reminiscent of a cafe, UB attracts students in the area (Queen Mary College is a short distance to the east) and the occasional white coat from the Royal London Hospital next door.
reviewed
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George Inn
The always-popular George Inn is London’s last surviving galleried coaching inn. It dates from 1676 and is mentioned in Dickens’ Little Dorrit. No wonder it falls under the protection of the National Trust. It is on the site of the Tabard Inn (thus the Talbot Yard address), where the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales gathered before setting out (well lubricated, we suspect) on the road to Canterbury, Kent.
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Grapes
One of Limehouse’s renowned historic pubs – there’s apparently been a drinking house here since 1583 – the Grapes is tiny, especially the riverside terrace, which can only really comfortably fit about a half-dozen close friends, but it’s cosy inside and exudes plenty of old-world charm.
reviewed
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Counting House
They say that old banks – with their counters and basement vaults – make perfect homes for pubs, and this award winner certainly looks and feels comfortable in the former headquarters of NatWest with its domed skylight and beautifully appointed main bar. This is a favourite of City boys – they come for the good range of real ales and the speciality pies (£9.75).
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Earl of Lonsdale
Despite being in the middle of the Portobello Road Market, the Earl is peaceful during the day, with a mixture of old biddies and young hipsters inhabiting the reintroduced snugs. There are Samuel Smith’s ales, and a fantastic backroom with sofas, banquettes and open fires, as well as a recently extended beer garden.
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John Snow
This used to be one of Soho’s most popular pubs, but after throwing out a gay couple for kissing in April 2011, its popularity nose-dived. It’s a shame because it is otherwise a classic pub, with no music, just plenty of chat and cheap ale, lager, bitter and stout from British brewery Sam Smith’s.
reviewed