Bars & Pubs

If you wanted to demonstrate there's still life in the embattled East End boozer, head to this two-room pub isolated by the canal in Mile End park. Gastro nothing, fancy cocktails nowhere (although there are half a dozen single malts we'd not noticed before), you'll get a fine pint of one of two cask ales (Batemans XB and Piddler on the Roof for our last visit), wine from a Stowells dispenser or generic liquor out of an optic. You'll also receive that pearl beyond price: atmosphere. There's the wonderful bronze glow of the wallpaper (an original, albeit now coveted by a million retro-stylists playing catch-up), a maroon pelmet around the curved central bar that adds a theatrical spin to the old photos of cabaret nonebrities (Paul Wood? Maxine Daniels?), a shelf of porcelain plates and dried hops hung above the drum kit. Any fears this is becoming a hollow heritage experience are soon allayed by the crammed music nights, when a jazz combo is joined by students, new residents and to-the-nines husband-and-wife teams who've seen the generations move through the nearby estates. There are still ashtrays on the bar (empty, of course) and a manual cash till - almost against expectation, it rings up in decimal rather than farthings.

Time Out Bars, Pubs & Clubs Guide 2008/9