The Gastropub

Unlike many of the previous topics, this one promises to be contentious, for it concerns the much discussed phenomenon of the gastropub. Everyone it seems has an opinion about them, roughly ranging from grudging acceptance to downright loathing. Given that even how to define such an establishment is itself debated, for me to discuss them I must start to offer some personal opinions, so I’m moving decisively to the first-person for this post. You may differ in your definition, but that’s to be expected. There’s no single defining element at work, though I’ve heard people trying to argue that things like serving handmade/hand-cut chips, or having a chalkboard with food specials, are the sole feature making a place a ‘gastropub’. Perhaps, though, they could feature on a checklist we might come up with, or a mathematical equation?

What It’s Not

Even the OED entry errs on the side of vagueness when grappling with the gastropub:

“gastropub, n. Brit. A public house which specializes in serving high-quality food.”

While one might quibble about how to define “high-quality” food, let’s start with what the gastropub is not. It’s not a restaurant. Which means that restaurants that happen to be located in former pub buildings, even really striking ones retaining their old signage and name — for example, Konstam at The Prince Albert (St Pancras WC1) — do not in any sense count.

The gastropub is, then, quite rightly, a pub.¹ But how, after all, do we define a “pub” in the first place? We could say that if you can go in and just have a drink, it’s a pub for our purposes. You may not feel entirely comfortable just ordering a drink (these are gastro-pubs for a reason), but it should be possible without any undue attitude on behalf of the venue.

Then again, this doesn’t take account of the differences between a bar and a pub. One place which is local to me, where a person can happily just have a drink but which I don’t think of as a pub, is Masons (Ladywell SE13, fig. 50). It’s in a single-roomed former pub building; it even has a pub-like name (from its original name, The Freemasons’ Tavern). However, it’s fairly obviously a restaurant as well, and not a gastropub. There are many other places — whether housed in former pub buildings or not — that bill themselves as “bar/restaurant” or “restaurant/bar” which are, in essence, restaurants.

Figure 50. Masons (Ladywell SE13). Not a gastropub, but a bar/restaurant.

A pub doesn’t have to offer real ale (plenty of them lost their handpulls during the mid-20th century, as lager gained in popularity post-World War II), and then again there are places like the bar area at St John Restaurant (Clerkenwell EC1), which has several handpulls for ale. You could argue that pub decor is distinctive, perhaps emphasising wooden panelling, it might even be carpeted, but then there are plenty of places which shun these expectations and are no less pubs. Being able to sit at the bar doesn’t make it a pub (since you can do that at Masons), and if you are expected to stand while drinking it’s probably a bar, but some bars have seating and some cramped centrally-located pubs have a real dearth of it (The Coach and Horses in Covent Garden WC2, for example). It’s really a very subjective thing in the end.

In other words, you know a pub when you’re in it.²

More Food Than Drink

Taking the set of establishments we accept as pubs, then among those which could be called gastro, there are those which emphasise the food over the drink, and vice versa. It’s this first category which I would single out as the canonical gastropub and which have given rise to a certain characteristic style (which one can even see creeping into restaurant decor, just to further confuse matters).

They may not fully be restaurants but they certainly share characteristics, such as being laid out for service. Many fêted gastropubs will have a room, or several rooms, or another floor, laid out for service. Some may have only a few tables, or even just a bar stool area by a shelf, for drinking (especially during busy service periods, such as lunchtimes or dinner), which is I think fairly miserly, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a pub. The Running Horse (Mayfair W1), to take one example, may be dominated by tables laid for service, but it’s still a pub.

The most famous — claimed, in fact, as the pioneers — are The Eagle (Clerkenwell EC1) and The Anchor and Hope (Southwark SE1, fig. 51), and fit into this category. The latter has a separate drinking area, but those crowding it are often waiting for a table in the coveted dining area next door (for which no bookings are taken). When I visited on my own, hungry, during a downpour, I was seated at the bar on the drinking side. The food was great, and there was quite a crush of people around me getting drinks in, but as a pub, it remains marginal.

Figure 51. The Anchor and Hope (Southwark SE1).

Even if not prominently laid for service, a gastropub will share other characteristics with restaurants, like offering a full multi-course menu, with daily specials (often to be found on that omnipresent chalkboard, just to emphasise the regular turnover of dishes). Your food might be preceded by some bread to nibble on; if you’re lucky, you may even get some olives gratis.³

More Drink Than Food

If most people consider the appellation “gastropub” to be a criticism — those people for whom a pub is the social heart of a community (a community perhaps primarily comprising beer drinkers) — then there must be a place for a good pub which happens to also care about serving food that matches the quality of its beer and wine. This post in fact was prompted by a conversation with my friend Kake⁴ about whether The Selkirk (Tooting SW17, fig. 52) was a gastropub. I disagreed: I don’t believe it is, at least not according to my definition in the section above. It’s simply a pub which happens to offer a good, regularly-changing menu. Thankfully, many such places exist, all striving to strike that ideal balance between serving their community, but also serving good food and well-kept drinks — and surely this should be part of that service. Thankfully, the time when the idea prevailed that pubs should just serve beer — and usually only to men, at that — has long since disappeared.

However, some will certainly consider these pubs (the ones which make just a little more effort with their food) to be gastropubs, and there’s little sense in arguing too strongly that they’re not. They may, after all, still have separate dining areas, or employ a trained chef with grand pretensions,⁵ and it’s admittedly a very fine distinction to make — that these places, unlike the ones in the section above, don’t force you to think about food when first you enter their doors.

Figure 52. The Selkirk (Tooting SW17).

This doesn’t mean that all pubs serving food succeed. All kinds of factors may adversely affect their attractiveness as a destination, but most often, they’re sunk by a lack of quality control. A lot of pubs have introduced menus in recent decades, more so again since the smoking ban was introduced to London (and England) in 2007, and that is to be welcomed, but not all of them really care enough not to just source their meals from a professional catering company.⁶ And if you’re doing that, I don’t think you can be called a gastropub. Young’s is an example of a PubCo (it’s also a brewer, of course) who have upgraded a lot of their pubs over recent years according to a template emphasising food and hospitality, but in so doing have at times removed the vitality from them (though by no means from all of them: they still have some fantastic pubs).

Gastropub Chains

Having dismissed Young’s as not being truly gastro, there are nevertheless several up-market chains which focus even more robustly on this end of the pub market. Perhaps most prominent among them are the increasing number of pubs owned by Gordon Ramsay Holdings, starting with The Narrow (Limehouse E14, fig. 53) back in 2004, and whose estate is increasingly extending over West London.⁷ One might expect these to actually be closer to restaurants, but my experience in The Narrow, at least, has been that the majority of the pub is given over to drinking (with a separate, shorter bar menu available to these areas), and that the ale has been well-kept (if rather unchanging).

Figure 53. The Narrow (Limehouse E14).

Another currently-expanding chain of gastropubs is that owned by Ed & Tom Martin (under the sober business sobriquet of the ETM Group), often refitted Victorian-era boozers with an added food enticement — though at least one, The Botanist (Sloane Square SW1), qualifies more as a bar than a pub.

So What Is the Gastropub?

You know a gastropub when you’re in it. Just don’t expect everyone to agree with you.

Footnotes:

[1] By instinct, I almost appended “first and foremost” there, but that would itself be controversial.
[2] I conducted an entirely scientific poll of people’s opinions over at another blog of mine, and the consensus basically returned to this formulation. One of my favourite suggestions was that it’s a pub “if it has a group of old giffers in the corner”. More carefully reasoned was a combination of food availability and whether it serves beers or prefers cocktails — in that bars tend not to offer food and tend to be able to make cocktails, whereas pubs do not, but they may well have food. For as good an example as any on the Internet of the way these discussions can continue at great length without resolution, here’s a thread from the message board ILX.
[3] This was my girlfriend’s experience at one pub mentioned under this heading. Most often, though, you’ll pay for the extras. However, if there’s a cover charge, it’s clearly not a pub. Table service with the “optional” service charge automatically added to your bill is more of a grey area.
[4] She runs the Randomness Guide to London, an unflashy and uncommercial review site to which I contribute the occasional review myself. In fact, I link to them in the sidebar for all the pubs I visit.
[5] Perhaps employing a chef who doesn’t cook from pre-prepared ingredients and menus is the key to the “gastropub”? Though I suspect even here there will be exceptions.
[6] The Spirit Group (owned by Punch Taverns) and Nicholson’s (owned by Mitchells & Butlers) seem to me to be chief offenders in this regard.
[7] Beyond the reach of my photos, though I’m working on that!

Warmongering Pubs

If I said I’d been away on holiday in New Zealand for three weeks,¹ that’d hardly make much difference, given that at best I seem to put up one post on here a month, for all my good intentions. So I’ll just get straight down to it. This post returns to the subject of pub names.

London, as the country’s capital, was once the capital of a vast Empire stretching around the globe. Maintaining an Empire requires a strong military, so it’s no surprise to see pubs which reflect that history. Of course there are many pubs named after admirals, generals and other figures known for their wartime heroics (not to mention the occasional prominent warship or important battle). There are plenty of Dukes of Wellington, several Nelsons, quite a few Churchills, the list goes on.

Signing Up

Before you can have armed forces, you need the forces, and ideally they’ll volunteer — indeed, there are quite a few pubs of this name, like The Volunteer (Marylebone NW1).

Then there are the many different branches of the armed forces to which volunteers might sign up. Given their long history and importance to the Empire, the Army and Navy are well represented (as in the Stoke Newington pub The Army and Navy, fig. 45), whereas the Marines and the more recent Royal Air Force (formed in 1918) don’t find their way into pub names too often.²

Figure 45. The Army and Navy (Stoke Newington N16).

Weaponry

Once you have your forces, they need to be armed. Weapons must be manufactured first, and many of those early industries were based in London, which once upon a time was the Empire’s manufacturing centre as well as its capital.³ Almost all industry has long since moved away, but it is remembered in pub names like The Gunmakers (Clerkenwell EC1, fig. 46), which recognises the work of Hiram Maxim, based in nearby Hatton Garden.⁴

Figure 46. The Gunmakers (Clerkenwell EC1).

Once the weaponry has been made, it’s ready to use, and there’s certainly no shortage of pubs named The Gun (this example in Blackwall E14, thumbnail below).

Military Roles

The enlistees then need to be assigned ranks and roles within their respective forces. There are few ranks to be found in pub names beyond Admiral — and there certainly aren’t any called The Private (or, for that matter, The Cannon Fodder)⁵ — but you can find a few usefully martial skillsets among pub names. The Marksman (Bethnal Green E2, fig. 47) is just one such,⁶ though another called The Gunners (Highbury N5) no doubt owes more to a certain nearby football club’s nickname.

Figure 47. The Marksman (Bethnal Green E2).

Emplacements

On the field of battle, you need to shelter your soldiers against the danger as best you can. I’ve already written about pubs named after castles, and it’s not surprising that the kind of close camaraderie that undoubtedly comes from these embattled emplacements lends itself easily to the public house. Then again, a pub like The Fort (formerly The Royal Fort, Bermondsey SE1, fig. 48), probably has more claim than many to a siege mentality.

Figure 48. The Fort (Bermondsey SE1).

Success

Finally, if one’s forces fight well, maybe they’ll achieve Victory (this example being in Bethnal Green E2, fig. 49). Quite a few of the pubs by that name, though, seem to have renamed or closed, and perhaps, given the predictions of gloom in the industry, that’s not entirely inappropriate. I certainly hope that’s not the case.

Figure 49. The Victory (Bethnal Green E2).

Footnotes:
[1] Yes, I had a nice time, thanks. I went to a few brewpubs (I’d recommend The Twisted Hop in Christchurch, particularly) and quaffed some nice ale, which they like to keep at a much colder temperature over there. Also tried an interesting seasonal from Mac’s called Brewjolais which uses very young hops, though I don’t personally understand all the technicalities. On the way home, we stopped off in Seattle, which also has plenty of fine microbreweries. However, this blog is dedicated to London pubs, so enough of that.
[2] Though The Dog and Bell (Deptford SE8) used to be called The Royal Marine.
[3] Not all manufacturing of explosives was turned to war, and if I find nowhere else to mention one of my local pubs and one of the more strikingly sui generis pub names in London, then I shall shoehorn it into a footnote here: The Pyrotechnists’ Arms (Nunhead SE15), named for a former local manufacturer of fireworks.
[4] The pub’s website gives information about the historical connections. Also, you’re probably aware of it, but the publican’s blog (Jeffrey’s Beer Blog) is one of my favourites, and I can heartily recommend it, even to those who don’t obsess about the gravity of real ale, or whatnot.
[5] As far as the photos I have, The Driver (Pentonville N1) used to be called The General Picton, and I daresay there are others I’ll uncover in time, but already I have The Admiral Duncan (Soho W1), The Admiral Hardy (Greenwich SE10), The Admiral Keppel (Hoxton N1, now closed), and The Lord High Admiral (Pimlico SW1).
[6] Incidentally, it appears to have been given a makeover in the last year, as befits its proximity to Columbia Road Market, perhaps.

Ballad of Peckham Rye pubs

Muriel Spark is an author I do not perhaps know enough about, but living near Peckham I was inspired to read her novella The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960). I should really have paid attention earlier, for she has a wonderful turn of phrase. Also, quite apart from providing an acutely observed story of interlocking characters working at various factories in the Peckham area, whose relationships are soon rent asunder by the anti-heroic protagonist Dougal Douglas, it also makes reference to the changing character of this working class neighbourhood in the middle part of the 20th century, both its commercial life and its pubs.

The very first page tracks spurned lover Humphrey’s progress around various drinking establishments.

He got back into the little Fiat and drove away along the Grove [Lane] and up to the Common where he parked outside the Rye Hotel. Here he lit a cigarette, got out, and entered the saloon bar…. He walked across to the White Horse and drank one bitter. Next he visited the Morning Star and the Heaton Arms. He finished up at Harbinger. (p. 7)

Except for the last, all these pubs existed and were clustered around the southern end of the Peckham Rye Common. The Rye Hotel (now just the Rye, Peckham SE15, fig. 18) probably still looks much as it did back then, with the ironwork picking out its former name in gold lettering, and the old Taylor Walker lamps and sign in evidence, even if now (in common with most pubs) the saloon and public bars are no longer kept separate.

The White Horse (Peckham SE15, fig. 44) is still down the road a little and over the other side, still half-timbered mock Tudor, but with a slightly disturbing modern sign, while opposite it at the top of Rye Lane is the Morning Star (now called the Nag’s Head, Peckham SE15). The Heaton Arms was on the corner to the south of the Morning Star, but has since been demolished to make way for a residential development.

Figure 44. The White Horse (Peckham SE15).

Most of the novel’s drinking action, however, takes place at the Harbinger, which is not a name attested by any local pubs. In Ed Glinert’s Literary London (2000), the Harbinger is linked to another demolished pub, this one on Denmark Hill in Camberwell (the Golden Lion, 23 Denmark Hill, at the corner with Orpheus Street),¹ which sat out the front of the old Camberwell Palace of Varieties, presumably on the basis of the following quote:

A bright spiky chandelier and a row of glittering crystal lamps set against a mirror behind the bar – though in fact these had been installed since the war – were designed to preserve in theory the pub’s vintage fame in the old Camberwell Palace days. (p. 107)²

There are, however, references in the novel (further up the same page, in fact) that suggest the pub must have been a composite:

And so they followed Dougal and Beauty up Rye Lane to the Harbinger. Beauty was half-way through the door of the saloon bar, but Dougal had stopped to look into the darkness of the Rye beyond the swimming baths… (p. 107)

Denmark Hill is not particularly close to Peckham Rye, but there was apparently a lido on the Rye Common itself,³ nearest to the King’s Arms (later a crime-blighted club named Kings on the Rye), at the corner of East Dulwich Road, now demolished.⁴ (The only other pub to overlook the Rye is the Herne Tavern (Honor Oak SE22), further to the south.)

It’s just a pity some of the other details in her novel weren’t more true, but then she’s tapping into a deep sub-strata of mythmaking and mysticism surrounding the Rye (perhaps most famously encapsulated in William Blake’s vision of an angel). Her story of Boadicea has little basis even in legend, and the tantalising storyline involving secret tunnels dug between Nunhead and the police station on Meeting House Lane are entirely false, though they live on in local legend (as seen on the board outside The Old Nun’s Head pub).

Footnotes:
[1] There is a page on the pub at the excellent genealogical Dead Pubs website. The relevant section of Ed Glinert’s book (2000) is on p. 348 and discusses this and others pubs mentioned in the novel.
[2] Further information about Camberwell music halls may be found here at arthurlloyd.co.uk. Archive photos (which also show the Golden Lion) may be found on a page at the Theatres Trust website.
[3] Thanks to my commenter for the information (see below). See this article about former lidos and outdoor pools in London for more information. The baths were located in the triangle of land at the very north of Peckham Rye Park.
[4] A picture of the pub can be seen in this page on Toby and John King’s transport history website. Dead Pubs has a page with some historical details of the King’s Arms. It was apparently destroyed in the Blitz, prior to Spark’s novel, which further complicates any identification of the Harbinger.

Pubs by Area: SE21

London has a lot of postal districts. Just taking the London-specific ones (W, NW, N, E, SE, SW, EC and WC), there are 119. And most of these have a good range of pubs, too, though most obviously cluster in the centre of town. Not SE21, though: this postal district we can cover quickly. I now have photos of all three (that’s 3) of its pubs.

The vast majority of SE21 (1,500 acres of it, to be precise) comes under the management of The Dulwich Estate, an organisation which is separate from Dulwich College (which itself owns vast tracts of pristine playing fields and attractive college buildings), but which funnels money into the College and other schools as a charitable venture.

Clearly, public houses are not a priority of the Dulwich Estate. In fact, there is only one hostelry in the centre of Dulwich Village, which is The Crown and Greyhound (Dulwich Village SE21, fig. 41). It retains in its name some sense of the history behind it, as there were originally two separate pubs, one on either side of the road, at this location. However, at the turn of the 20th century, these merged into the one larger pub, leaving more spaces for the organic delicatessens and baby clothing boutiques, such as befit the area.

Figure 41. The Crown and Greyhound (Dulwich Village SE21).

The remaining two pubs lie to the West of the Village. One is what is commonly referred to as a ‘gastropub’, The Rosendale (West Dulwich SE21, fig. 42). This appellation may be more warranted than in many cases, given that fine dining isn’t otherwise particularly plentiful in this area (surprisingly), so hungry locals must congregate with those merely slaking their thirst.

Figure 42. The Rosendale (West Dulwich SE21).

Of course, Mitchells & Butlers’ suburban brand Ember Inns provides a third option for the residents of SE21, which is The Alleyn’s Head (West Dulwich SE21, fig. 43), not perhaps as rarefied as the other two, and occupying a large site off Park Hall Road, with prominent car parking out front, looking for all the world like a Wetherspoon’s manqué.

Figure 43. The Alleyn’s Head (West Dulwich SE21).

If there’s a lesson to be drawn from all this, it’s that you’d be better off living elsewhere if it’s a quick pint down the local that you count on in the evening. Then again, you’re unlikely to be able to afford to live here, anyway.

Former Pubs of Soho

Long time, no update: I’ll bet you thought I’d gone away. Well, it’s the New Year and I’ve been fairly lax about updating here, so I’m thinking of adding more short blog-like posts to fill the downtime between me getting around to writing longer pieces. My compulsion to ensure I have a photo of all the relevant pubs, rather delays me actually writing anything.

Something to get us going again are buildings in the centre of the West End which you’d be forgiven for not realising had ever been pubs in the first place. Probably the original ground level entrances have been completely remodelled, or you’ve just been in such a rush to get out of the crowds you hadn’t noticed the buildings themselves, some of which have giveaway clues (for example, the name of pub in permanent architectural lettering¹), many of which don’t. In fact, most of these buildings I hadn’t myself noticed until I’d done some research and had compared the addresses.

Charing Cross Road

Take our first example, The Excelsior (Soho WC2, fig. 37) at the top of Charing Cross Road. Putting aside the pane of glass which makes up most of its frontage, it’s just about possible to imagine the pub signage running above street level where now it says “Harmony”, and those boxy pillars framing a street-level window. There remains some rather nice ironwork around the discreet entranceway to Falconberg Court on the left, too, though when this was a pub, there would hardly have been any need for smokers to stand huddled under there. It hasn’t been a pub for a long time, probably not since the early part of the 20th century. In any case, it is now condemned, along with the Astoria Theatre it sits alongside, and indeed the rest of this city block, destined to become an enlarged Tottenham Court Road station as part of the vast new cross-London underground railway which has fetchingly been named Crossrail.

Figure 37. The Excelsior (Soho WC2), now condemned.

Moving further south along the street, the provenance of what is now a rather bleak-looking restaurant called Scotch Steak Houses is more obvious, thanks to its prominent lettering (it was, as it proclaims, rebuilt as the Tam o’ Shanter, though was called the Palace Tavern after that, before closing as a pub in 1960).

A building that’s less obviously a former pub, due to its extensive reconstruction, is The Rose and Crown (Soho WC2). It has been part of Foyle’s since very early in the 20th century (Foyle’s moved to the road in 1906), and the interior has been completely gutted and integrated with the larger adjoining buildings (this was done around 1913).² Its name comes simply from the names of the streets at the corner of which it sits: Crown Street and Rose Street. Its identity however, has been doubly erased, as the former is now Charing Cross Road and the latter Manette Street.

Figure 38. The Rose and Crown (Soho WC2), now Foyle’s bookshop.

Oxford Street

Returning to our starting point and turning left into Oxford Street, one quickly comes across a couple of buildings which, like almost every other on this street, have been completely remodelled at ground level and now present discount goods for undiscerning buyers, often with English language schools upstairs.

The Primrose (Soho W1) is up first, less obvious and now more garish. Moving a few doors along, The Queen’s Head (Soho W1) gives itself away by featuring prominently its former identity (on the garret tower reads “1880 | Walton | Old Queen’s Head” — in other words, when the pub was rebuilt and the name of its publican at the time, William Walton).

Figure 39. The Old Queen’s Head (Soho W1), now converted to a shop.

Further along Oxford Street, few other former pub buildings survive (if any), certainly if the evidence of the spectacularly unattractively rebuilt Hog in the Pound (Mayfair W1) is anything to go by.

Inside Soho

Moving in from the borders, a number of buildings stick out. Still one of the most famous pubs in the area is The Intrepid Fox (Soho W1), on Wardour Street, which after several hundred years finally closed in 2006 amid much outcry,³ though it has since relocated to a new site behind Centre Point tower. Even now, the original building still remains in place, boarded up, surely making no profit for its owners who were so hasty to be rid of its occupants.

Turning into Broadwick Street from Wardour, one quickly comes across another former pub building, now in use as a celebrated (and very fine) record shop called Sounds of the Universe. Back when this stretch was called Edward Street, this was The Bricklayers’ Arms (Soho W1). Unlike a lot of former pub buildings in the West End, the tiling on the pub’s facade hasn’t been painted over (or removed to be replaced by a new ground level), so it still shines out from the other buildings along this stretch of road — except that is, of course, the Blue Posts which sits on the very next corner. There’s certainly no shortage of pubs around here even now.

Figure 40. The Bricklayers’ Arms (Soho W1), now a record shop.

Turning up Berwick Street (away from the Blue Posts), there is a building on the corner now occupied by yet another prospective fast food chain franchise, and which was once The Crown and Apple Tree (Soho W1). Of course, in the familiar fashion, the ground level is completely reconstructed, so there’s little left to suggest its former use.

These are just a few buildings in this area which once were pubs. Many more have been demolished to make way for new uses: new shopping centres or stations, new roads or office blocks. The Excelsior, featured at the start of this post, is just another example of this impulse in London to make way for the new by getting rid of what went before.

Footnotes

[1] “Architectural” lettering is embedded in the very fabric of the building. It’s often to be found at the top of old pubs. It must be distinguished from “fascia” lettering, which are signs affixed to the facades of buildings, usually advertising the shop or pub name.

[2] Dates are taken from F.H.W. Sheppard (ed.), Survey of London, volumes 33/34 (1966), available online at British History. The reference to these buildings is here.

[3] See contemporary reports on BBC News for further information on the background to this.