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Every week we hear about the closure of a much-loved pub. Often, they’re mothballed for years, until developers can turn them into flats. There they stand, on your street, the ghost of pubs past, begging you not to look.
The Carlton Tavern in Maida Vale is quite the opposite, because it’s the Lazarus of London pubs. Not only was it closed down, it was levelled by wrecking ball.
The pub was illegally demolished and, in one of those rare moves that make you want to kiss a councillor, the culprits were held to account and ordered to rebuild the whole thing, brick by brick, like a giant Lego set for drinkers. The pub reopened in 2021, exactly as it was when it poured its first pints 100 years previously.
And it’s a beauty, one of those monolithic taverns with brown tiles and lettering describing interwar tastes for ales and spirits. There’s more of that down the side, promising a tea room that’s been converted into an inviting, vaulted dining space. In the beer garden is another reminder of its history: a reclaimed sign from when it was a Whitbread pub.
But The Carlton isn’t stuck in the past - this place has diversified to the max. Should you want to, you could eat there, drink there and sleep there in the boutique hotel upstairs, accessed by a private courtyard.
Talk of boutique hotels shouldn’t give you the wrong impression about the bar spaces, which are shabby and lived-in in just the right way. Rebuilding did not, apparently, mean the place is pristine and perfect. This survivor is entitled to a few battle scars.
Order this
Bar food promotions include a set of 20 wings in which one is nuclear on the Scoville scale. It comes with free milk.
Time Out tip
Take a stroll around nearby Little Venice, London's answer to, er, Venice