Pub Vignettes #13
Episode #13: loosely festive in the East End (East London)
I’m not the only one eyeing up the Cold War era fire blanket behind the bar. Best see off this pint sharpish, that tinsel looks flammable. Festive, even in the dog days of summer, with velvet curtains, shag-lite carpet and flock wallpaper in shades of red spanning cranberry to Brick Lane tikka. Everyday Festive is a mug’s game, though, get the Big Tinsel Box out of the cellar. Hard and hairless East End men cruise through pints of lager next to art students pouring from charitably marked-up bottles of supermarket vino. The cabal of local pensioners from the flats across the way and I only have eyes for the five pound pints of Fuller’s ESB. We must have been very, very good this year.
The Pride of Spitalfields, 3 Heneage St, London E1 5LJ
Dramatically gentrifying a pub without getting the decorators in takes some bravery. They’ve had a run round with the industrial carpet cleaner since my last visit, at least. Pints of keenly priced Murphy’s (“this is the real black stuff, bro” - eager barman who’s never set foot on Irish soil) and scampi fries aplenty successfully cosplay as Working Man’s Boozer. Seventy pound bottles of orange wine and small plates of rabbit vindaloo, well, don’t. This street is no stranger to rampant renewal, as Zed Nelson chronicled in his love letter to struggling Hoxton indies, The Street (now, with dramatic “we’re all fucked anyway, so why not” irony, available to stream on Amazon Prime). Pint of stout and the best bifana sarnie I’ve had off the Iberian peninsula, hi-viz lads from the bintrucks barrel in to grab £3.50 Super Bock bottles and head outside for a vape and post-shift debrief. Hard not to feel that this place might have found a progressive kind of balance.
The Macbeth, 70 Hoxton St, London N1 6LP
A toastie menu is the oasis in the desert of the mid-pubcrawl drinker. What’s the provenance of this cheese and ham? Tesco Express round the corner. An expedited farm-to-table version for the five-pint hunger crowd. Local retiree makes the accompanying hot sauce from his allotment’s bounty in return for a bottomless half pint of cask ale. Stragglers - or early arrivals - of a wedding party chain cigarettes in the doorway keeping half an eye on the pristine wedding cake on their unmanned table. Conversation jangles around the horseshoe bar. Head-height dartboard by the gents’ toilet door thwocks with activity, probably best hold it in until the next place.
The Wenlock Arms, 26 Wenlock Rd, London N1 7TA
Pub Vignettes is a monthly(ish) collection of impressions of the world’s more interesting drinking spots.
For those who’ve followed along for more than a decade via the now-retired Beermack site, welcome back. For those newer to this parish, welcome.
A small footnote of gratitude as we mark the end of year one at Pub Vignettes. A heartfelt thanks to all readers who’ve found us and to Boak and Bailey - the gold standard of beer/pub writing of the last decade, in my book - who selected Pub Vignettes as beer blog of the year in their 2025 Golden Pints.