Penny Blood's Black Book - My Independent Guide to London » Pubs

Enterprise

Penny Blood — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:10:31 +0000

The Enterprise is something of a Camden institution. I came here quite a bit in my art college days, that’s the type it attracts. The Enterprise has a spacious downstairs with an upstairs offering an intimate gig venue for aspiring bands and musicians. I’ve seen many bands here that now either work for the council or for an accountants, I guess that’s what happens. It’s also opposite the Roundhouse and therefore a very popular after venue for whatever bands or acts have been playing that night. Frequented by both young student types, who are all in bands or friends with people in bands and old regulars who have been coming here since it opened and must have taken a look at the hordes of skinny jeans and bizarre outfits and decided to carry on drinking there anyway. Some will hate the Enterprise and some will love it but I will say this, avoid coming here at night, stick to daytime as it gets impossibly hot and sweaty. During the day however it’s just an old school Indie boozer with a makeover. It’s comfortable and cosy with a wall to ceiling bookcase, pictures of literary notables on the walls, sofa’s and random lamps spotted about, really it’s just a great place to read the papers.

http://www.camdenenterprise.com

The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, London, NW3 2BL
020 7485 2659
Mon-Thu 11am-11pm; Fri 11am-1am; Sat 12pm-1am; Sun 12pm-11pm Friday & Sat: 11am – 1am

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Florist Arms

Penny Blood — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 08:42:13 +0000

Situated on a quiet residential street, The Florist Arms isn’t the kind of place I would suggest you should go out of your way for but it’s definitely worth knowing about if you live or you’re staying in the area. It’s a friendly little place with red boudoir style wallpaper, velvet stools and big leather couches complete with tasseled lanterns and fairy lights just to complete the kitsch-shabby-chic look. Although the tables are the best bit, with individually decorated tops ranging from collages made from comic books, flowers and TFL maps to naked ladies they are inspiring indeed. It aims to draw in the cool kids enticing them with well loved board games and fresh stone-baked thin crust pizza – delicious and of course no local pub would be complete without a pub quiz.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Florist-Arms/19194437006

The Florist Arms, 255 Globe Road, London E2 0JD
0871 971 4135
Monday – Saturday 11am-11pm; Sunday 12pm-10:30pm

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The Palm Tree

Penny Blood — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:55:19 +0000

Oh the Palm Tree, what a beauty. It’s a fitting name as the Palm Tree is stuck on a desolate patch of nothing. It’s got the canal to oneside and then well, nothing to the other. This is an establishment that harks back to another time that’s for sure. Alfie the owner is as authentic a cockney as you’ll ever find, he can tell you some stories about the Kray Brothers I bet. The decor is for want of a better word, special, infact it’s truly glorious. Metallic gold wallpaper adorned with palm trees with black and white pictures of boxers and London from lets just say, a long time ago furnish the walls. I wish I could have taken a few more pictures but Alfie wasn’t keen, he doesn’t trust photographers apparently, I was lucky to get what I did. The Palm Tree is deadly quiet during the day and popular with pretty much everyone the rest of the time, eccentric old regulars and students alike. I think I’d have to say the Palm Tree is my favourite.

Palm Tree, 127 Grove Road, London, E3 5BH
020 8980 2918
Monday – Thursday 12.00pm – 12.00am Friday – Saturday 12.00pm – 2.00am
Sunday 12.00pm – 1.00am (last admission 10.45pm)

The George and Dragon

Penny Blood — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:20:14 +0000

The George and Dragon is no doubt the campest pub in London. It looks like a pub but really it’s a bar, totally kitsch and decorated with fairy lights and Barbie dolls. It’s where Isabella Blow used to kill time before she killed herself (R.I.P). Sadly it’s a bit of a target for pretty gay boys in skinny jeans and hoxton mullets to get beaten up but it doesn’t stop them flocking there. It has the most disgusting bathrooms I’ve ever seen but it’s the epitome of Shoreditch and attracts the most fashionable crowd you’re likely to find. It’s full of people who still like to smoke so there are usually more people on the street outside that actually inside. They often have dj’s there playing whatever music is cool and obscure or worse ‘ironic’, it’s contrived and I’m a big fan of anything contrived, at least it means they’re trying.

George and Dragon, 2 Hackney Road, Shoreditch, E2 7NS
020 7012 1100
6pm-midnight daily
Food served: Monday-Friday 12pm-3pm, 6-10pm ; Saturday 6-10pm Sunday 12pm-4pm

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Old Blue Last

Penny Blood — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:36:49 +0000

The Old Blue Last, a nice looking pub with deer heads and taxidermy (no shoreditch pub would be complete without) is, despite pretending to look like a no-frills eastend boozer, infact hipster HQ and owned by Vice magazine. To be honest I never actually come here, well not anymore anyway. It’s the kind of place one frequents regularly for a short period of time because it feels like the right place to go, everyone here knows they are drinking in the right spot. They host gigs with young bands you’ve never heard of with names like ” None Of Them Knew They Were Robots ” and launch parties for whatever product Vice deems cool at the time. It’s a really nice pub though, tons of space and chesterfield couches, with a nice atmosphere and no ugly people.

Old Blue Last, 38 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3ES
020 7739 7033

http://www.theoldbluelast.com

Blue Legume

Island Queen

Penny Blood — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:25:27 +0000

Depending on whose reading this I’m probably not the best qualified person to write up pubs mainly because I know absolutely nothing about beer. I’m told the choice of beer at the Island Queen is second to none with a huge selection on tap, not that this is something I would notice. However you don’t really need to know anything about beer to marvel at the splendor that is the Island Queen. It’s how I imagine Miss Haversham’s mansion would be, totally over-grown with palm trees growing through the ceiling, oxidized mirrors covered in moss and exotic cats lounging on velveteen furniture. The epically high ceilings create good acoustics meaning that no mater how busy it gets you never have to shout or strain to hear. It has a great layout, the bar takes up the central core of the room with big chairs grouped into cozy corners. My friend Rozey loves coming here. Rozey is a bit of a nutter. So is her boyfriend Justin. He’s very talented though, he can play any instrument including the saw. His family are Romany gypsies and his grandmother lives in a caravan where every square inch of the interior is covered in tapestries of a gaudy nature. For Christmas she gave him a ‘Boots’ voucher which when he tried to use it was told it was a fake, well it was either that or another stolen DVD player. The last time I saw Rozey she was meant to be writing up her thesis. Instead she was making epic quantities of mango chutney and lemon meringue pie. That pretty much sums up Rozey and Justin and the Island Queen pub.

The Island Queen, 87 Noel Road, London, N1
020 7704 7631
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday 12pm-11.00 Wednesday and Thursday 12pm-11.30
Friday and Saturday 12pm-12.00

http://www.theislandqueenislington.co.uk

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Three Kings

Penny Blood — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:19:12 +0000

Don’t be fooled by the name. I know, if there was a penny for every pub called the ‘Duke of York’ or the ‘Three Kings’ we’d all be rich but on this occasion the pub in question is named not through lack of imagination but rather after Elvis, Henry the VIII and King Kong, yes those three kings. The Three Kings is a gem. It looks pretty unremarkable from the outside, nothing special whatsoever, oh but inside. It’s an intimate little place with a few regulars and ecclectic decoration, lots of pictures from movies plastered to the wall and a giant papier mache Rhino head, what else? you have to have one of them. I used to work in a Taxidermy shop, we would get a stream of Irish Gypsies asking for Rhino tusks, they are a valuable aphrodisiac used in Chinese medicine you know. They are also highly illegal. Yeah sure we have a stash outback waiting to flog to the likes of you…. amateurs.

The Three Kings, 7, Clerkenwell Close, London, EC1R 0DY
020 7253 0483‎
Mon-Fri: 12:00 – 23:00 Sat: 19:30 – 23:00

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Jerusalem Tavern

Penny Blood — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:43:45 +0000

If it wasn’t for the type of people who come here, the suit-wearing, boring and loud, let’s-get-a-drink-after-work type, The Jerusalem would be perfect. You’ll come across a lot of people who work in Clerkenwell, which appears mainly to be comprised of media and architecture offices, that kind of thing and people dressed on the wrong side of cool. What it does have however is a number of good restaurants and proper old English pubs, probably because it’s like a really really historic area, which is now mainly trendy glass fronted offices. Housed in a building dating back to 1720, it’s as beautiful as they come in that tatty, uneven and creaky kind of way. Tiny and cosy, it’s worth trying to nab the little cockpit table on the second floor, (the cockpit is in fact the ‘second floor’). I think it’s the most authentic London pub….in London.

Jerusalem Tavern, 55 Britton Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 5UQ
020 7490 4281
Monday – Friday 11am-11pm , Food served: Monday and Friday 12pm-3pm
Tuesday – Thursday 12pm-3pm and 5pm-9.30pm

Commercial Tavern

Ten Bells

Penny Blood — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:16:23 +0000

Situated on the corner of Fournier Street (one of my favourite streets in London, due to its proper Victorian-ness) and next to Shoreditch Church, the Ten Bells is where Jack the Ripper would meet the prostitutes who would later become his victims. It’s this kind of trivia that prompts most guide books to advise you not to come (to avoid people who come for this fact alone) but I say this is the attraction. Surprisingly few people know this Jack the Ripper fact. It’s a beautiful old pub with mosaic walls, dark furniture and Pendleton couches. Unfortunately the 10 Bells has recently had a massive makeover, it’s barely recognisable from what it was originally but it’s still nice although perhaps little generic. It’s invariably packed with a cross section of people staring at other people better looking than them…..

Ten Bells, 84 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LY
020 73661721
Monday – Saturday 9am-6pm

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The French House

Penny Blood — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:02:44 +0000

The best thing about a bad date is it gives me something to write about and a new person to slag off. On this occasion we had arranged to meet at the Groucho club in Soho at 9pm. However my moronic date for the evening text me just before to say let’s meet at the French House instead as 9pm is a bit early for Groucho’s (Groucho’s isn’t exactly hip – although it is a private members club, it’s where old school newspaper hacks and media types hang out all day to get away from their wives or get over their recent divorce). Knowing this guy that translated to “the person who could get us into the Groucho can’t make it so we have to go somewhere else but I’m too pretentious to admit this”. No problem though as the French House is one of the best pubs in London despite the fact that most people would also agree with that. Located in the heart of Soho it’s a respite from the sleazy gayness of the surrounding bars and latex shops, basically this is where straight people go when they drink in Soho. It’s old and wooden with faded pictures of movie stars on the walls and little tables where you can hide away in a corner. It’s small and gets very crowded but has a fairly quick turnover as it’s the kind of place people meet before they head off elsewhere. It’s a Soho institution and worth a visit.

www.frenchhousesoho.com

The French House, 49 Dean Street, London W1D 5BG
020 7437 2477
Monday – Saturday 12pm-11pm Sunday 12pm-10.30pm Sun,
Food served: Bar Monday – Saturday 12pm-3pm Restaurant Monday – Saturday 12-3pm, 5.30-11pm