london bars

i dunno what's a good london pub though - erm... London Pub by russell square?

Playschool

i'm not sure whether he would like high class prostitutes.

he is a fan of nyc's trendy meatpacking district, apparently, so i imagine he will like old st...

he's not so much of a dick that i'll send him to a wetherspoons.

omg yes! it'll be his home from home.

but surely 'the real london' IS loads of tourists, trying to 'discover it'. It's a self perpetuating experience.

Not quite true: east London is more than just hoxton and shoreditch after all. There's some fantastically "real" boozers in Tower Hamlets, Stratford, West Ham et al, though they might not take too kindly to a trend-spotting yank in their midst.

And then there's Yates's in Lewisham...

-- Hello Sunshine (fiver_the_bunn...)

tower hamlets is full of city boys!

If only The Flying Scud was still open.

otm.

it's meaningless saying somewhere's more real because it's boring. if i wanted boring i'd send him to watford or milton keynes.

anyway, he's a bit of a try-hard so he'll like somewhere he can see lots of other try-hards trying hard.

mebbe this thread should have been titled 'nominate your favourite london pubs and bars'. go on. do it. both pubs and bars allowed and no quibbling over nomenclature please.

especially pubs because most of the time the company is the best thing about a pub.

What london pubs and bars have that summer 08 feeling?

I think this year i'm ready for drinking outside, lets make this a sitting outside and drinking beer time, I think you deserve it, deep down I think you do too

pub on the park (london fields) kind of wipes the floor with the competition afaic

what's the competition? some guy on a bike selling red stripe cans?

i have not sat in a pub garden with a pint so far this year :(

The Pub on the Park is one of those pubs, like the Trafalgar Tavern, that is too bludy well known for its own good and becomes annoyingly busy whenever the sun comes out.

I would like to know of a few more decent beer gardens in the more central bit of North London. You know, unassuming local, little garden out the back, proper pub tables. Until then, I'm still at the lounging in park/spilling out onto Lamb's Conduit Street stage of summer drinking. Not that I'm complaining.

i've never been IN the Pub On The Park

Any pub along the riverside in Richmond is awful nice when the weather's like this...

(x-post... it ain't North at all)

the shakespeare's head, behind sadler's wells!

i can't get there til 6:30 though, soz

best beer garden in Zone 1, now that is a challenge

South London: Rose and Crown near Southwark tube has the largest beer garden round those parts. Founders Arms by Tate Modern is not great but it's on the river. The George at London Bridge is not bad - good ales, large outdoor space although no grass in sight. The Anchor at London Bridge have decided that now is the ideal time to renovate, won't be open till June some time.

I've never been to the beer garden at the Shakey Head, I bet it's ace though, everything else about that pub is.

Also Exmouth Market! Almost all the pubs and bars have tables outside and in this weather they're all about as good as one another. Cafe Kick might win overall though.

is that the one with "baby foot"?

Exmouth Market is good. Shepherd Market, off Piccadilly, is under-frequented. Not in a "not busy" sense, just that no-one I know goes there very often.

Shepherd Market is lovely, if a bit too full of chartered surveyors on a busy day, very French feel.

clerkenwell green (although it's hardly a 'green') is a decent size outdoor drinking spot.

but the most central decent actual pub garden i can think of is the edinboro castle in camden

The Edinboro Castle is good!

There is a good summer pub crawl to be done going North from Southampton Row I think, all those dark little pubs that spill out onto nice green Bloomsbury squares.

Charlotte Street and the area around it = perfect for summer drinking.

Has the Canonbury Tavern reopened yet?

i think i'd rather drink around Museum St. - slightly quieter and more outside tables

no garden exactly, more like an alley, but the lord john russell is a favorite central summer spot

Any pub along the riverside in Richmond is awful nice when the weather's like this...

(x-post... it ain't North at all)

it's worth walking for 5 minutes from Richmond along the river (in the Kingston direction) to this German place that does platters of sausages and MASSIVE beers.

xpost Yeah, but I can't remember, is there still construction blocking the sidewalk there? (LJR)

near the hammersmith bridge are some godlike outdoor pub spots

so is anyone doing this drinking thing?

Not me, not now, not tonight.

i have to w3rk :/

anyone got a suggestion for a place in east london?

what are you looking for? i messaged ally btw on fb, i've been off work sick the last few days but hoping to pull myself together today.

mason & taylor at the top of brick lane? while it still exists and all.

if cocktails, 'off broadway' on broadway market is meant to be good.

another good place for cocktails is 'happiness forgets' on hoxton sq

i second off broadway

the mexican food at off broadway is also pretty good

we went to mason & taylor
and then pride of spitalfields

was a great time!!

nice backstory thread on old-school ilx institution:

It's Friday. I should be boozing but no. Lockdown.

So have a history thread about where I should be.

Let's talk about Bradley's Spanish Bar, London's classiest and oldest (maybe) dive bar, and about how a bunch of old Greek wrestlers helped turn a tiny corner of Soho Spanish. pic.twitter.com/0vEhMHNpyf

— John Bull (@garius) April 17, 2020

hey I’ve been there

i've been informed by an old-skool ilxor that this is "A spanish bar" but not "THE spanish bar"

(both in hanway street, just doors away from one another)

older-skool even than me i mean

oh maybe I’ve never been then

the relevant whatsapp is now abuzz with distinctions, memories and sightings*, plus the sage claim "different people have different spanish bars, it's a state of mind"

*sightings of the legendary "hairy man", who properly dwells in the true spanish bar (but has been seen in all the others)

The ILX Spanish Bar is the less famous of the two and may no longer exist.

fucking hell

We are opening the biggest bar in the UK tomorrow with a capacity of 1775!

Here is my little behind the scenes tour of the amazing @BrewdogWaterloo pic.twitter.com/wyQg8lbRdP

— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) August 17, 2022

A podcast studio, with glass walls, in a noisy pub!
A slide which a drunk person will be sick on within the week!
Tables with benches indoors like a canteen in a factory!

as an ex waterloo resident I wanted to fond out where it is, the brewdog.com/waterloo link on their twitter feed from all of 12 days ago 404s.

Unfortunately I have found it - https://www.brewdog.com/uk/bars/uk/brewdog-waterloo

Off to the Garden Museum tomorrow. Anywhere good to walk to (for wine)?

If you're walking back towards waterloo maybe check out lower marsh, it had some good bars when I was there, it's only got trendier since.

A shout out for my current favourite pub in London: the Charles I, on a back street a few minutes walk from Kings Cross station. Proper local, with an official “no wankers” policy.

https://kingcharles1st.co.uk/