Bars & Pubs

Landlady Sandra Esqulant has been the hand on the pump at this classic east London boozer for 30 years, and if it's gained a reputation in the last ten or so of them as a home from home for the Brit Art crowd, they're no more feted inside its wood-panelled walls than any of the other locals. There's a proper community vibe here with old blokes propping up the bar alongside market geezers and tattooed foreign exchange students. Stand outside (the favoured option since the smoking ban took hold) on a sunny Sunday and it can sometimes feel like you've accidentally gatecrashed a fancy dress party - nu-rave kids hiding behind '80s Ray-Bans, vintage-clad thirtysomethings sipping cheap wine and - last time we were in - a bearded artist clutching a pint in one hand and a cardboard box containing the antique corpse of a small dog in the other. Oddball style credentials aside, this is a pub where old fashioned manners and old-school decor rules - small rooms, crowded tables, open fires and pub-industry memorabilia. A neon sign flashing out 'Stand still and rot' offers a more modern vibe. The regulars can't get enough of the place but it's hard to tell if its popularity with the younger crowd is a result of its own virtues or just cultish nostalgia. Sometimes - when the fluoro jukebox is belting out a guilty pleasure - the two are inseparable. As for Esqulant, she's in it for the long haul: 'I want to be laid out in here when I die,' she says.

Time Out Bars, Pubs & Clubs Guide 2008/9