I know Notting Hill fairly well.
Well enough to have a favourite seat at the Electric Cinema (D7; first row with foot rests, in the middle), well enough to have a favourite place to watch sport (the little room in the Walmer Castle; sofa, private bar hatch, your own 40” telly and a cracking Thai green curry) and as you’d expect, well enough to have a favourite bar. Unsurprisingly, it’s that last one we’re going to get amongst for the next couple of minutes or so.
A festive eve
If The Regent is an old friend then surely The Churchill Arms is at the very least an older brother.
This traditional old boozer sat atop Kensington Church Street should be like any other London pub but for two crucial ingredients- the passion and energy of one Gerry O’Brien and the fantastic Thai food served out back. Ingredients are an understatement as in reality they are the heart and the vast majority of the cardiovascular system to this establishment.
We seem to be in East London a lot lately. And no bad thing.
In the interests of transparency, we were staggering before we even got to Hawksmoor and we were actually meant to be drinking at the Commercial Tavern across the road (we were too late, blame Secret Cinema), but that is not at all to say we settled for second best. Not by a long chalk. I say this because this review is not going to do the place justice. I didn’t take a photo of the outside (although J got a good one of the drinking for Twitter), we didn’t eat (gutted. They are, by some accounts, the best steaks in London) and I can’t remember anyone’s name. This could all have been achieved before we left but the blame for the fact that it wasn’t I place squarely in their own, cocktail-wizarding hands.
For an objective web-based column, making a judgement call based on geography is subjective at best, more accurately, naive and pointless. Still, there has to be some of me in my posts and so for the purposes of this review I’m going look at the map from from where I am on it. Just so you know.
There are still places in London that, being a hard and fast West London dweller (think anywhere in a line from Fulham to Notting Hill, Chiswick if I’m feeling rural), that when I go there it genuinely feels different. I don’t mean swapping Georgian terraces in Kensington for mansion blocks in Earls Court different, I mean ‘I’m not convinced this is still London’ different (the pull to mention something about Kansas in this paragraph is surprisingly strong but I won’t weaken).
We at Publocation actively seek out these places and although the locations will be different for most of the people reading this I think the feeling is a common one, it’s a lot of fun to go drinking in very different places than you’re used to. One such place for me (there are a number) is Hackney.
I have to admit to a slight bias regarding the name Coach and Horses based on well, bias(and a pub I once visited in Leamington Spa which is probably all it is really). For me the name has always conjured images of suburban chain pubs trying to pass themselves off as 17th century coaching inns, when they are about as original as a photocopied menu pizza. I approached this particular Coach and Horses down a slope( I now know once formed the ancient and now hidden underground River Fleet), and its initial appearance left me with similar misgivings. Entering I was again slightly under awed but I think it may have been due to my predisposition and the fact I didn’t quite know what to make of it. In what can only be described as Jack and the Beanstalk proportions, this place did however grow on me.
Your local pub is a bit like a pair of house pants. Close at hand, easy to get to and will just about do if you absolutely have to leave the house. They should also be comfortable which may not necessarily mean they fit but as long as they are functional they serve a purpose. If you are lucky enough to have the Regent on the final trip hazard through your door, then damn it, not only are you wearing your house pants out and about with pride, they are also fitted, cool and funky.
Welcome to Publocation.
This is a blog for any and all lovers of the institution of good drinking in great places. It attempts to serve as a beacon for all that is right about the beautiful global convention of meeting in comfortable surrounds and consuming intoxicating liquor with a select group of worthy friends.
Our mission statements:
1. We will accurately recommend, refer, repudiate, suggest, scorn, enlighten, promote and abuse all that we come across with the aim of showcasing the best our fair Isle (and the odd distant shore) has to offer in venue, drink and food to local and traveller alike.
2. We will accept no bribe and give no quarter in making our recommendations, we have no agenda other than honesty and accuracy (and finding increasingly desperate reasons to go down the pub more often).
3. We will venture out, to this end, EVERY week. Hell, high water, locusts, whatever.
4. We will clearly revise these mission statements, without notice, at the drop of a hat, as and when we see fit, to suit whatever we feel is in our best interests at the time.
This is Publocation.
Let’s get on with it.
