Bars & Pubs

Blyth Hill Tavern
This unusually shaped bar falls into three unique spaces with two open fires. The pub’s genuine Irishness is worn lightly – free from all traces of Green Beer tat – and is reflected in a wider-than-average range of Irish whiskies. The true warmth of the welcome and a deep-set professionalism springs from the old days of the pub trade.
Pint of Guinness: £2 (Normally £2.75)
Blythe Hill Tavern, 319 Stanstead Rd, SE23 1JB (020 8690 5176) Catford tube or Catford Bridge rail

Coach and Horses
The closest decent boozer to Covent Garden Piazza, the Coach is a genuine, expat Irish pub. Tiny though the bar area is, it also boasts over 70 malts and whiskies from either side of the Irish Sea. To soak up the booze, hulking great lumps of pork and beef sizzle away on the hot counter, ready for use in sandwiches: hot roast beef, salt beef or Limerick ham. Otherwise, sporting talk buzzes around the modestly sized, red-carpeted saloon, regulars putting in their penn’orth before returning their noses to the Irish Times.
Pint of Guinness: £3.20
Recommended Irish Tipple: Middleton Whiskey £10.50 if you can afford it. Redbreast Whiskey £4.50 is lighter on the pocket.
Coach and Horses, 42 Wellington St, WC2E 7BD (020 7240 0553) Covent Garden tube
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Cow
Owned by Tom Conran, this cosy Irish pub in perennially hip Notting Hill is renowned all over London for its oysters and Guinness. There’s an excellent range of wines, spirits and bottled Belgian beers, plus a couple of real ales (Pride and Harveys Bitter). Cow buzzes with local artists, musicians, filmmakers, TV personalities, media folk and young families.
Live band: The Trojans play at 9pm
Pint of Guinness: £3.50
Recommended Irish Tipple: Jameson Whiskey £3
Cow, 89 Westbourne Park Rd, W2 5QH (020 7221 0021) Royal Oak or Westbourne Park tube

Filthy MacNasty's
Its crimson walls have had a recent lick of paint but the Irish pub, tucked away in the residential back streets of Angel, is still the epitome of elegant slumming. Trendy mags and French books are there for perusal in the cosy front bar, while the signed rock posters hint at the bar’s rock pedigree. A mix of young hipsters and weathered locals add to the pub’s rough-hewn charm while staff are amiably down to earth. Thai food is served on weekdays as well as free-range Pieminister pie and mash but at night the hungry must content themselves with tasty Irish Tayto crisps.
Pint of Guinness: £3 (Apparently the second best in London)
Filthy MacNasty's, 68 Amwell St, EC1R 1UU (020 7837 6067/www.filthymacnastys.com) Angel tube


Harp
Lovely little Irish bar this, with no need to display shillelaghs or signposts to Kilkenny, just titular harps in the glazed front windows, decent ales, a pot of sausages sizzling on the hob and gentle conversation around the bar. Not just any sausages, mind: O’Hagan’s award-winning sausages, proudly detailed on the board outside – beef and Guinness, Welsh pork and fresh leek. Decor is provided by portraits of long-forgotten personalities lining the narrow walls of the one main bar, entertainment by the low-volume background of afternoon horse racing, anticipated from early doors by lazy annotations of The Sporting Life.
Pint of Guinness: £3.25
Recommended Irish Tipple: Middleton Whiskey £12
Harp, 47 Chandos Place, WC2N 4HS (020 7836 0291) Charing Cross tube/rail

Tipperary
When the Boar’s Head (as it was then) was taken over by Dublin brewer SG Mooney in 1700, it became London’s first Irish pub – it was evidently blessed with the luck of the Irish, as the old building had survived the Fire of London. Taste the Guinness once you’ve squeezed into the tiny, thin space with it's pretty shamrock-decorated mosaic floor or sample the oysters and Champagne.
Pint of Guinness: £3.20
Recommended Irish Tipple: Mitchell’s Green Spot £4. One of the only places to stock this gem that even non-whisky drinkers would love.
Tipperary, 66 Fleet St, EC4Y 1HT (020 7583 6470) Blackfriars tube/rail

Porterhouse
Vast and multi-levelled, a maze of mezzanines, galleries and walkways, and with glass-fronted cupboards of curious ales, and bannisters and railings fashioned from copper piping, the Porterhouse is one great play pen for would-be inebriates. But the drinks are taken seriously with three each of its own-brewed (that means Dublin-brewed) stouts, bitters and lagers.
Pint of Guinness: Does not sell Guinness
Porterhouse, 21-22 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7NA (020 7379 7917/www.porterhousebrewco.com) Covent Garden tube or Charing Cross tube/rail

Royal Exchange
The Royal Exchange is a solid drinking shop, unencumbered by the fripperies of design or fashion – no-nonsense copper-topped tables are the order of the day. The pub is Irish-run (in the same hands for 20-odd years), but mercifully a million miles from the usual high street Feck O’Donnell’s Green Beer Emporia. There’s also both hot and cold running Guinness and it will be open extended hours from 11am – 11pm.
Pint of Guinness: £3
Recommended Irish Tipple: Murphy's Irish Stout £3
Bonus: Free Irish stew with every pint, and the evening special will be ‘bacon and cabbage.’
Royal Exchange, 26 Sale Place, W2 1PU (020 7723 3781) Paddington tube/rail

Toucan
It looks like it’s been here for centuries, but this Guinness-themed bar just off Soho Square was a sandwich shop until the mid-1990s. All it took was a few toucans and seals from John Gilroy’s iconic pre-war advertising campaign for Guinness – plus the black stuff itself, of course – and this two-floor venue has been a palatable Irish destination bar ever since. Dublin’s finest also fills the house cocktails of Black Velvet (with Champagne), Poor Man’s Black Velvet (with Magners cider), Black Maria (with Tia Maria) and so on.
Pint of Guinness: £3.50
Toucan, 19 Carlisle St, W1D 3BY (020 7437 4123/www.thetoucan.co.uk)Tottenham Court Road tube

Waxy O'Connors
Six floors and four bars, all done out with Irish tosh, road signs, plaques, quotations, centrepieced by a bloody big beech tree. Its prime function as a post-work pick-up joint, liaisons encouraged by Caffrey’s, Guinness, Murphy’s and Beamish. Irish food is served in the bar until 10pm, try the Rossmore oysters or the more hearty Irish stew.
Pint of Guinness:
Waxy O'Connors, 14-16 Rupert St, W1D 6DD (020 7287 0255/www.waxyoconnors.co.uk) Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus tube.