Despite looking like just another old-school footie pub from the outside, the King's Arms in Bethnal Green – located on a quiet residential street – confounds a barrelload of expectations. Dimly lit like a Brooklyn dive bar, boasting a rotating selection of craft beers and with chic wooden trimmings, it should by rights scream 'hipster haven'. Yet this isn't a pretentious hangout. It's the perfect update of a local community boozer: its clientele reflect all shades of local life, regardless of whether they follow the King's Arms on Instagram or not. It’s all about craft beer here - plenty of it on tap, from new-wave IPAs to comforting bitters and jet-black stouts.
Bethnal Green, bang in the middle of the city’s East End, has always had more than its fair share of the best pubs in London. If you’re on the hunt for wood-panelled boozers serving pies and pints to Londoners new and old, this is the place to come. But over the last decade or so, as the surrounding area has smartened its act up, there’s been a boom in the sorts of watering holes that Barbara Windsor would hardly recognise. Nowadays, Bethnal Green is home to some of London’s best cocktail bars and even the capital’s very own urban winery. Here’s our current selection of the area’s very best bars and pubs, a clutch that proves East London drinkers have never had it so good.