Best pubs in East London: The old man pubs

The presence of carpet is usually the first telltale sign of a proper boozer, another is the sparse collection of spirits behind the bar, usually Bell’s or Jack Daniel’s, Gordon’s or Tanqueray, Bacardi, and Smirnoff. Then the draughts: lager, Guinness, and real ale.

The only food is packets of crisps. The bar is sticky – the tables too – despite the presence of battered coasters. The walls are nicotine-stained and the place smells of beer, cats and cigarettes despite the long-ago smoking ban. These pubs rarely have websites let alone social media accounts. No good photos exist of them. Some have TVs for watching sports.

To say proper boozers are an endangered species is melodramatic but they are undoubtedly becoming more rare. In an era of sterile monoculture, trends, and fast-everything, there’s something deeply grounding and comforting about old man pubs during these (dare I say) uncertain times. Each is – to paraphrase a famous film – the place to go, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.

The Palm Tree

It’s easy to think the Palm Tree was built in Mile End Park, a lone building in the surrounding greenery. But it happened the other way around. The pub’s neighbours were destroyed in the Blitz and then cleared away, leaving the Palm Tree an island in the sea of green.

There’s no website or social media account and no TV screens. The carpet is floral and busy, the tables are marred, the wooden chairs creak, and you’re likely to actually talk to the people sitting next to you – something I think Londoners forget was the point of a pub.

Don’t ask for the WiFi or complain about the place being cash only (you’ll likely be told where the door is) and don’t scroll on your phone – talk to the punters around you even (especially) if you’re on your own. Do pop in on weekends for live jazz.

Mile End, E3

The Pride of Spitalfields

A sanctuary from the throngs of people on Brick Lane, the Pride of Spitalfields is a study in red: red carpet, booths, stool cushions and red velvet and white lace curtains. It just works somehow. It’s so cosy that for many years one of its regulars, Lenny the cat, could often be found napping away on a chair.

Old photographs on the wall, a healthy selection of beers, spirits and real ale all sensibly priced. The pub is tiny and so is the bar so don’t moan about waiting to be served when it gets packed. This is an old man's pub, everything out there moves fast and to convenience. In here? You talk to your neighbours or read a damn book while you wait to be served.

Spitalfields, E1

The Eleanor Arms

I honestly couldn’t tell you the opening hours of the Eleanor Arms – I do know with certainty, however, that it’s open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I recommend the Eleanor Arms on a Sunday evening when locals crowd in for live jazz. When I lived across from the pub, I used to crack the windows open so I could hear the jazz drifting across the road when I was too hungover to drag myself down to the pub.

As live jazz is common in proper boozers, so too are the double bars – back when men used to drink on one side and women and couples on the other. There’s a battered old pool table and battered wallpaper, and every time I’m in I feel like I’ve stepped into an episode of Only Fools and Horses even though I know Bow isn’t Peckham.

Case in point, the co-owner of the bar, an older gentleman, sitting backwards on a stool by the door questioning his wife (the other co-owner) about when they’d had the wall panelling replaced as he didn’t recognise it, and his wife responded it’d been like that for twenty years. The ten-minute battle of wits that ensued thereafter was worthy of a TV classic.

Bow, E3

The Army & Navy

In the Dalston-Newington Green borderland, the Army & Navy is what I can only describe as lively – when the locals aren’t watching the football and the rugby there are karaoke nights and live music.

It’s an old-school boozer where you’ll find an equal mix of old and young folks. Yes, it’s got tellys, card payments, and a good selection of beer but the interior and exterior of the 1930s Truman pub are relatively unchanged and they love their carpet so much it gets cleaned… every once in a blue moon.

The beer garden is massive but the inside is where all the character is. The Army & Navy is the kind of place where the table is covered in your many pint glasses, rolling tobacco and torn open packets of crisps, where you order pints and spirit mixers at the bar and order in from Mangal 1 across the road when the crisps have done nothing to sober you up.

Newington Green, N16

The Globe

In a sea of gentrification with industrial chic pubs and squeaky clean ‘classic’ imitations that hipsters flock to like moths to a flame, the Globe in Morning Lane stands tall in defiance (except it’s actually adorably squat but that’s neither here nor there). Not even its £200,000+ refurb a couple of years ago took away the proper boozer-ness of the place.

The East End pub is now operated by Craft Union and offers an extensive drinks selection above and beyond your usual old-man pub but the prices have remained sensible when everything else in Hackney has not.

It’s a great place to catch the sport – even Arsenal’s loss to Porto in the Champions League earlier this year (on my birthday no less) couldn’t spoil the enjoyment of a pint of Guinness and a whisky chaser surrounded by locals who have been drinking in the place for decades. And if you’re not the sporting type, don’t worry, it’s a local through and through with punters in to enjoy a drink, a chat, and live music.

Hackney, E9

The Hare

Even as sleek wine and listening bars spill out from Hackney into Bethnal Green, the Hare – in stereotypical old man behaviour – refuses to modernise, monotonise, or depersonalise. If I may go so far as to anthropomorphise a pub, like any elder in a community, the Hare is a knowledge keeper of a lifeway and tradition that’s threatened by capitalism’s monoculture.

It’s not just the front room atmosphere and chats at the bar, it’s the kind of place filled with locals but nobody looks sideways when a new face walks through the door. To top it off, it’s got a jukebox and a pool table – the Hare does not leave me wanting.

I love the East End but when I’m spinning from the £6.50 pints, organic wines and overpriced small plates, stepping through the doors of the Hare offers a sense of grounding and stability I didn’t realise I needed until that first sip of lager – followed by my Jameson chaser – and first verbal exchange with locals who didn’t look at me like a sideshow freak when I made casual conversation.

Cambridge Heath, E2

The Blind Beggar

Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t care about Ronnie Kray shooting somebody in the Blind Beggar. I also don’t care that several people like to moan about this pub. I can’t even care that the pints are overpriced; I’ve become so jaded in London that I expect to get stung by almost every pub in Zones 1 - 3.

I do care that they finally replaced their pool table although it’s still regrettably in the same location near the gents' toilets. I also care about the old photographs of the Blind Beggar on the walls and its wealth of history that reaches far back beyond the Krays in the 1960s.

I like the Blind Beggar because it’s one of the few places in the area where I can get a pint of lager and a dram of whisky, play a game of pool with my mates, and not be assaulted by squeaky clean Scandi-minimalism and pendant lamps. I like the garish red ceiling and the dated chandeliers. Like all the boozers in this blog, it has the look and feel of a pub that remained little changed for a century or more.

Call me old fashioned, stubborn – a little grumpy, even. I just want the simple pleasures of a cold pint and talking shite with a stranger at the bar.

Whitechapel, E1

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