Aldgate pubs

This establishment resides in an area of London renowned for its odd traffic planning. The one way system is a nightmarish merry-go-round of irate taxi drivers and terrified out-of-towners all competing to change lanes simultaneously. The whole experience has now taken on a rather surreal dimension with the recent addition of a series of roadside urban sculptures, one of which resembles a policeman with a metal pole and a traffic cone stuck up its arse. Well, it's good to see my council tax money being put to good use. This pub is an assault on the senses the moment you enter. There is a whole host of sports screens and flashing fruit machines filtered through a yellow tobacco haze. The smoky atmosphere does not seem to deter the staff and students from the local campus of the London Met University. One individual had obviously hot footed from the nearest fancy dress party having failed in his bid to win first prize dressed as Bruce Willis from Die Hard. You just don't go out in public wearing a vest unless 1) you have the physique or 2) it is summer. Flash poseurs aside, this pub is a decent venue to watch the footie and they do a decent pint of Bass as well. Now closed, probably due to the Slug and Lettuce across the road. Walking along Royal Mint Street from Tower Hill reminds me of one of those American movies. You know, the ones that depict a highway in the middle of nowhere, probably somewhere in the Nevada Desert. The protagonists drive along the highway and pass a gas station (or a petrol station if you are from this side of the pond) and there is a sign saying 'last gas station for 150 miles'. This pub feels a bit like that gas station. Beyond it lies Cable Street which stretches for 2 miles without a single pub. It wasn't always like this. Before the docks closed there were many: The Crown and Dolphin and The Britannia being the most well known. In 1936 this was a vibrant, mostly Jewish street with a strong community spirit. It was this spirit which stopped Mosley's Blackshirts from marching along it. Since then, life has been sucked out of the area by the Luftwaffe, a lot of ill-considered post-war development and massive demographic change. My late father once told me that Cable Street was a no-go area in the 1960s. However, nowadays it is a pretty safe, if extremely dull thoroughfare. The only points of local interest are the St George's Conservation Area and the recently-saved Wilton Music Hall. A blue Boris cycling superhighway quickly whisks Lycra-clad cyclists through it all towards Limehouse and Barking. The pub itself occupies a converted Victorian warehouse and its attractive facade is a lot more appealing than continuing eastwards to Cable Street and the thrills that lie beyond. On entering, I found myself in a disappointingly run-of-the-mill kind of boozer with an average beer selection. A small group of older customers were sat drinking and chatting at the bar. Being a warm, sunny day in August; I grabbed my pint and followed the sign pointing to the beer garden, which in truth, was a patch of concrete off to the side of the pub and separated from the road by a high wall. After a while, the relative tranquillity was interrupted by an oafish collection of suits that proceeded to hold a business meeting at the next table. Oh. This pub is worth a quick pint before stealing yourself for the journey onwards but has little else to recommend it. This place looms into view like a giant wedge of red and white cheese when approached from the east. As befits its location betwixt the City and the East End, there is a rather mixed clientele here: students from the nearby London Met University and a smattering of suits. As an Essex man I was pleased to see Ridley's Old Bob on offer and duly ordered a pint before finding a place to sit. The vacant table adjacent to the dart board was not tempting: darts landing anywhere apart from the board. As I risked incineration by sitting close to the fire I imagined Jim Bowen emerging from behind the dartboard saying "Look at what you could have won" whilst pointing to an enormous mobile home. A sign above the fire proclaims that the place is open at weekends until midnight. Beer, it seems, gets cheaper the longer you stay here. My first pint set me back £2.40, my second a mere £2. If you stay until the weekend you can buy a pint of beer for the princely sum of £1.50. Perhaps if you dodge the wayward darts and remain here long enough it will be free! This pub, which opened as recently as 1976, was formally an old warehouse believed to date from the 18th century. It is a sort of half-fake affair, yet it manages to do a convincing impression of being an old pub. On the outside, there are timber galleries clad in foliage. Inside, there's lots of dark wood, wooden barrels and low beams. It's all very atmospheric and the tourists love it. It's often busy and is frequently packed, which can get very trying indeed. The owners have cottoned on to its popularity and a pint of Doom Bar will set you back £3.80. Ouch. Waiting to get served at the bar can be like waiting for a London bus: nothing happens for ages and then three bar staff suddenly appear at once. The pub serves traditional grub but if this doesn't take your fancy, there is a pizza restaurant on the first floor and another restaurant called The Grill on the top floor. It's worth a visit, but only outside peak times. Spared from incineration by the strong easterly wind in the Great Fire, the Hoop and Grapes has stood the test of time. It looks the part too, the whole ground floor appears to lean to the left when viewed from the front. It is as if the alchoholic fumes have entered the structure over the centuries and rendered the building drunk. On entering, the place expands off in all sorts of improbable directions making it unexpectedly quite large inside. The bar stocks all the usual suspects and not at the exhorbitant prices I had been warned about. The toilets down in the basement are dwarfed by the vaulted brick ceiling and make you feel like an ant in a roman hypercaust (but without the heat). One of the better pubs in the area. Not reviewed yet.

Want to review it? This is more like it! £1.30 for a pint of porter and fewer annoying suits than other pubs in the locale certainly gets our vote. The atmosphere here is sensibly balanced and the music, though clearly audible, never gets overpowering. It's a Shepherd Neame pub so you can expect good beer. It has an attractive and completely unexpected beer garden at the back, which is undoubtedly a magnet in the summer months. Not bad. This little pub is tucked in a little alley off Aldgate High Street and close to the busy bus station. You have to question the logic of having a pub so close to a bus terminus. It certainly goes some way toward explaining some of the more erratic driving on the 115 route! It looks and smells as if this place hasn't been done-up since Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. The elongated bar room caters for a mostly standing crowd with just a few seats thrown in for the weak-limbed. Well, bus drivers spend their entire working day sitting down so they won't mind. At the time of my visit before the post work rush there were only a handful of drinkers who had obviously left the office early for a cheeky pint. The unhurried barman had his nose in a book at the end of the bar. A relaxing, if rather uninspiring boozer. This would be a great pub if you gave it a clientele transplant (can you get those?). The beer is superb (Shepherd Neame) and the landlady has won a pub award for her efforts. It's just the people that go there that get on my nerves. First of all it's too busy. Everyone within a half mile radius appears to go there for a drink after work. Consequently you have to wait ages to get served at the bar. Secondly, the noise of the post work crowd is reminiscent of a school playground and stifles any attempt at meaningful conversation and you end up being reduced to eavesdropping on how Mike the marketing director has sent his son to the best private school. Yawn. If you're lucky the crowds usually thin out by 8ish, leaving you to share the place with those too drunk to move.

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