Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 5 and Version 4 of Carpenters Arms, W1T 4EY

Pub in Fitzrovia, and part of the Mitchells & Butlers "unbranded" Castle sub-chain.

The Carpenters occupies a slender corner spot and retains its old Wenlock Brewery tiling. There are tables outside on the street (mostly along Whitfield Street, but with a couple of small tables on the Howland Street side).

Inside, there are two rooms downstairs (the old saloon and public bars), but attractively redecorated, including a cute little corner decorated as a suburban 50s-style British living room. There's another room upstairs (the Belle Bar, which can presumably be booked), which stretches around an upstairs bar, with period glass partitions, heavy velvet curtains and quite a few tables. At the end of the upstairs bar is a modest roof garden, with two large tables and a couple of smaller ones. There's a lattice for creeping plants to grow over the large tables, but it doesn't provide any effective cover from the elements should it be raining.

There are handpulls for ale on each of the three bars (two on one side downstairs, three on the other, and two more upstairs), offering London Pride, Sharp's Doom Bar and a scrumpy downstairs, with just the Doom Bar upstairs on an August 2009 visit. They rotate guest ales, and had Adnam's Southwold Kölsch on an October 2009 visit. Draught lagers include Leffe, Erdinger (£1.75/half pint), Peroni, Früli on all bars, with Beck's Vier and Red Stripe lagers and Gaymer and Aspall's ciders also available downstairs.

Food is served from noon-10pm every day (except Sunday, until 9:30pm) and is from a standard Castle pub menu, so there are £5 daily lunchtime specials available. Ewan tried a grilled goat's cheese sandwich with roasted red pepper and rocket (£3.75), with chips on the side for an extra £1.25 photo. There weren't too many chips served with it, but the sandwich was filling enough for the price. Service was in any case friendly.

It tends to get rather busy downstairs on most lunchtimes, but fewer people seem to find the upstairs seating, and Ewan was able to get a roof terrace seat on a Tuesday lunchtime visit. In general, the upstairs bar is a pleasanter environment, though the downstairs is hardly shabby.

See also:

• Beer In The Evening comments
• Fancyapint review
• Boak And Bailey review

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