Randomness Guide to London Menu

A popular pub on Rosebery Avenue just by Exmouth Market, in Clerkenwell.

This refurbished pub near the intersection with Farringdon Road may use some of the cliches of the gastropub conversion — worn wooden tables with benches, bare floors, chalkboard specials — but it doesn't sacrifice any of the essential qualities of a good pub. Its additional focus on hosting a variety of events in a separate live venue ensures that there are always new crowds of young and trendy drinkers, so even on a Thursday evening the place was still just about full.

The pub itself stretches back to take in two conjoined rooms, with plenty of tables and a couple of booths near the back. Out front there are benches alongside the road. The live venue space is on the other side of the bar in a side room and has a separate entrance from the street.

The bar has the usual range of dependable draught lagers like Amstel, Heineken, Budvar, Hoegaarden, and Guinness (£3.30/pint). There are also a couple of handpulls for ale, which seem to be tied to the Greene King brewery — on our visit in May 2009, they were just running out of the Olde Trip (£3.10/pint) and had soon put another on in its place, and in July 2009, the beers were Greene King LBW (a cricket-themed beer for the Ashes) and Bateman's XXXB (&pund;3.10/pint). Strongbow is available on draught for cider drinkers. Spirits are jokingly split into categories (OAP vs ASBO, etc.)

Food is served noon-9pm Monday to Thursday, noon-4pm Friday, and 1pm-8pm on Saturday and Sunday. There's a seasonal menu, with a few snack-type foods (a bowl of chips, or hummous with pitta bread, £3.50, the latter of which came with slightly toasted pitta and a nice spicy hummous) and a variety of mains photo of menu in July 2009. A separate chalkboard lists daily specials as well as which of the Pieminister pies are on offer. Ewan's posh cheese and onion pie (£8) was perfectly decent, served with either mash or chips, as well as some slightly over-cooked peas photo.

Accessibility: There is no step to get in, and although toilets are upstairs, there's an accessible toilet at the back of the ground level with a radar lock.

See also:

• Beer In The Evening comments
• Fancyapint review