East End Pubs (& one Sowf Lundan)
PUBS WE LOVE
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PUBS WE LOVE •
The Grapes.
Our local pub on Narrow Street, now part-owned by Ian McKellen, who is often there hosting the Monday night quiz. He lives next door. (www.thegrapes.co.uk): They have a restaurant upstairs, seats about eight, cozy and the food is good, simple, British and fish-focused. Very worth a pint downstairs. It's tiny and has a very small deck over the Thames. You look out to an Anthony Gormley sculpture that is almost submerged at high tide. On some particularly high tides the bar staff have to mop up the floor between serving pints.
The Star of the East.
Commercial Road (thestaroftheeast.co.uk). If you could zipline out of the livingroom window and over the canal to the road opposite, you’d land at the back of the pub where the “garden” is. Super decent pizza, great for a pint, a G&T and a leisurely afternoon in the neighborhood. Haven’t tried it but their Sunday roast is apparently ace. (Empress of India also does a bloody ace Sunday roast).
The Palm Tree.
A relic of a pub, the Palm Tree has no time at all for the modern trappings most east London hostelries. Don’t expect the crispest of pints or the most chivalrous service either. But people still traipse to this middle-of-nowhere Mile End venue for something money can’t buy – the Palm Tree provides a Cockney experience. It’s in half a dozen London police procedural dramas. It’s 15 mins walk from the flat. (127 Grove Rd, Bow, London E3 5BH - no website cos it’s trad).
The Gun
The Gun on Coldharbour (www.thegundocklands.com): We haven’t eaten here in a couple of years, but it’s a great pub. I tried to buy it when it was derelict in the late ‘90s. An amazing waterside location far from the maddening crowds, with assured cooking, considered ales and a global wine list. The pub dates back to the early 18th century but took its current name from the cannon, which was fired to celebrate the opening of the West India Import Docks in 1802. In the late 18th century, Lord Horatio Nelson acquired a property just up the road (still known as Nelson’s House) and he regularly visited the docks to inspect the guns up until his glorious death at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Lord Nelson would frequent The Gun and regularly meet Lady Emma Hamilton in an upstairs room (now called The River Room) for their secret assignations.
Prospect of Whitby
Prospect of Whitby Pub (Don’t go for food, go for a pint and the history): The Prospect of Whitby is a historic public house on the banks of the Thames at Wapping in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (our borough). It lays claim to being the site of the oldest riverside tavern, dating from around 1520. Shakespeare drank here, so oral history tells us.
The Empress
The Empress of India (www.empresse9.co.uk): High-ceilinged 19th-century pub with exposed brick walls, serving a Modern British menu - and a good menu hense why it’s in the food section. But it’s also a very good pub a nice walk up along the Regent’s Canal, through Vic Park.
The Mayflower.
The Mayflower pub is a hidden gem in the heart of Rotherhithe, London (www.mayflowerpub.co.uk)
A traditional English pub surrounded by cobbled streets, the outside decked jetty and cosy candlelit restaurant have stunning river views. You can spot the original 1620 mooring point of the Pilgrim Father’s Mayflower ship, warm yourself by the open fire and imagine who may have been sitting in your seat 400 years ago.
The food menu offers delicious, classic British dishes using local and fresh ingredients and is complemented by a great range of well-kept traditional ales, craft beers, local gins and fine wines.