Legendary Covent Garden bar the Crusting Pipe is becoming a Mr Fogg’s Tavern

If you’re a regular in Covent Garden, this month you’ll have noticed the absence of one of the area’s most legendary venues. 

As previously reported by Time Out, storied piazza wine bar The Crusting Pipe shut its doors for good on December 21. The bar was one of the first tenants of Covent Garden’s market hall after its redevelopment in 1980 – which transformed it from a fruit and veg market into a hub for entertainment and hospitality – but closed its doors after 45 years in operation. Davy’s, the bar’s former operator, chalked the closure up to a change in trading environments and consumer habits.

But all isn’t lost for the lower ground floor space in the Market Building – in fact, it already has a new occupier lined up.

None other than Mr Fogg’s Tavern is set to open in The Crusting Pipe’s former site. When the new bar opens this summer it will be the 11th Mr Fogg’s venue in London.

So, what has Fogg’s got planned for the place? Alongside a 65-seat courtyard, the interior boasts 4,500 square feet of space with room for 130 guests.  It will become Mr Fogg’s flagship venue.

Charlie Gilkes, co-founder of Mr Fogg’s, said the new venue would bring something ‘historically interesting’ and ‘unapologetically British’ to the heart of Covent Garden.

Co-founder Duncan Stirling added: ‘Covent Garden is such an incredible destination for tourists, both domestic and international, as well as Londoners alike. There is so much fun we can have around the world famous market, opera house and theatrical heartland on our doorstep.’

Mr Fogg’s venues, for the unfamiliar, are a collection of Victorian-inspired bars and pubs themed around Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days. Mayfair became home to the first of its venues in 2013, swiftly followed by the opening of the original Mr Fogg’s Tavern on Covent Garden’s St Martin's Lane.

The opening date of the bar is unconfirmed but expected to be this summer. Will Mr Fogg’s Tavern become one of TimeOut’s fave bars in Covvy G? Only time will tell.

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