In the Palm Tree pub, east London, barman Alf is taking only cash at the rattling 1960s till. The building, which is Grade II-listed, stands in the middle of Mile End Park, and Alf has worked here since 1976. “It’s a wonderful pub,” he says.
It is also ranked fifth in Time Out’s 50 Best Pubs in London list, published this month, and marks a clear preference that has emerged for traditional boozers.
The majority of pubs in the top 50 are old-school, with carpets, karaoke or Irish music nights. Pickled eggs are often the extent of the culinary output. Some – whisper it – even sell pints for under a fiver.
From the outside, the Palm Tree’s windows glow a dark red. “Sometimes it might look closed, but always try that door. There’s always a warm welcome, for everyone,” says Alf. And punters agree. “It’s authentic,” says twentysomething Tabatha, nursing a Guinness. “Classic is coming back. Traditional has become the trend.”
Across Britain, pubs are struggling with rising costs and changing drinking habits. In the first half of this year, 378 pubs closed, the highest total since 2013.
According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), “wet-led” pubs, which rely on their beverage offering and often don’t have a food menu, have closed at faster rates than food-driven establishments.
When pubs do open – especially in the capital – many pitch themselves as a gastropub: £30 roasts, Aperol spritz, posh crisps and pints north of £7. Among London’s most successful openings since the pandemic are the Devonshire in Soho and the Plimsoll in Finsbury Park, both most celebrated for their food. However, it seems that the traditional boozer is far from serving its last pints. “Maybe we’re old romantics, but old-school boozers are the beating heart of this city,” wrote the Time Out food and drink editor, Leonie Cooper, when launching the top 50.
“The pubs on this list are heavy with the powerful whiff of history – though that just might be the sticky carpets – and throbbing with heart, soul and community charm.”
“There will always be a desire for well-managed pubs serving amazing beer in our communities,” says Ash Corbett-Collins, national chair at Camra, the campaign for real ale. All the finalists of Camra’s 2024 Pub of the Year competition were “fantastic examples of pubs that prioritise their well-maintained drink selection, as opposed to an extensive food menu.”
Max Halley runs three “wet-led” pubs in the West Country, all opened since the pandemic. “It seemed a crying shame that so many pubs felt that, if they didn’t do food, they were bad business people,” he says. A good traditional boozer means “being able to go on your own and feel totally comfortable, being able to eat your own food, velvet banquettes, newspapers, and a pricing structure based on selling a lot of beer at as low a price as possible,” Halley adds.
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As for food, “pickled eggs and a good selection of crisps are the only essentials”. His pubs don’t serve hot food: “How much more boozer can you get?”
The Kings Head on Blackstock Road rarely features on “best London pub” lists. It is small, there’s no kitchen and if you leave your seat you might return to find Scruffy the cat napping on it. On weekends, raucous karaoke can go into the early hours. Last week, it ranked ninth in the Time Out list.
“I try to keep it as cheap as I can,” says Mandy Davis, who has been landlord of the Kings Head for nine years and has worked in pubs her whole life. “If someone new comes in and buys a double, they say somewhere else they’d pay £16, £18 for that. In here, it’s £8.”
Davis also puts the bar’s boom in popularity down to the charm of the its events, alongside her complimentary corned beef sandwiches.
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“Young people take pictures – my son dresses up as Elvis now and again and does a bit of a show,” she says, sitting beneath a photo of her uncle with East End gangster Reggie Kray. “Everyone’s easy to get on with in here. We all know each other and we welcome new people.”
Jenny Rawe and Sean Robson were lured into the Kings Head by the sight of Scruffy sitting in the window. “You get what you see,” says 35-year-old Rawe. “It’s very comforting, and you don’t have to pay £12 for a pint.”
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Some publicans have speculated that last month’s budget could cause the price of pints to rise further due to rising national insurance contributions for employers, a higher minimum wage and the end of business rates relief next year.
Writer Jimmy McIntosh, who runs the Instagram account @londondeadpubs and contributed to Time Out’s list, says boozers are “the quintessential English pub”. He cites the interiors – “rich patterned carpets, plush leather banquettes, lots of deep mahogany panelling” – and the ambience as key to their continued appeal. “After a decade or so of drab millennial-core aesthetics – stripped back, strip-lit spaces that have all the warmth of a dilapidated morgue – people are coming round to a kind of cosy, maximal kitsch. They’re much more fun to hang out in, and they look better too.”
They are also a vital part of communities. “Usually there’s a real warmth to them … they’re true third spaces,” says McIntosh.
“In the best pubs, you can spend entire afternoons deep in refreshment without a care in the world.”
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