BITE user comments - donaldking
Comments by donaldking
This place on London Road has gone through the hoops over the years. It used to be the meeting place (in a room upstairs) for the St. Albans branch of the Socialist Workers Party. It had a spell has 'the place to be' for students & teenagers in the late 80's. Now it's rather large & neglected during the afternoon - but it does have the excellent White Hart Tap to compete with down the road. The barmaid told me, though, that last Saturday night it was so busy they completely ran out of glasses. Barman 'C' has just moved here from the Blacksmiths Arms, so the atmosphere will soon get a bit better.
26 Apr 2012 19:55
As many financial services companies have migrated to Mayfair, the Eastern edge of the City around Tower Hill & Aldgate has lost its soul. There are many boarded up properties. What has happened to the bar I still think of as the Savage Grill is a good example. It's changed names more times than I can remember since those days, and when I saw its latest mutation was into a Bavarian Beer House (I know the Royal Family originally came from Germany, but allowing a monstrosity like this right by the Tower of London is absurd) I didn't even go in. I went into the Cheshire Cheese over the road instead. The idea of sitting at a table with a blue & white checkered cloth, waiting for a girl in German native dress to come and serve me was more than I could stand... The Pitcher & Piano was OK, and I had bored the girl behind the bar telling her what it had been like there in the early 80s. Eventually there won't be a bar or pub there at all. Hopefully the Ship will still be there up the road, or even the Wine Lodge in Fenchurch Street if you really desperate for a drink.
26 Feb 2012 19:22
The Salisbury, Leicester Square
From the outside this pub hasn't changed since I first visited it in 1979 or 1980, but the clientele and the atmosphere inside is completely different. I've spotted the interior of the Salisbury in three films: Basil Dearden's VICTIM (Dirk Bogarde as a homosexual barrister who fights a blackmail ring), Ron Peck's NIGHTHAWKS (a semi-documentary account of gay life in the late 70's), and Tony Robinson's THE ENTERTAINER (Laurence Olivier as a failed music hall artist who comes up to the West End to meet his agent). A pleasant place to drink peacefully in the afternoon, but if you're waiting for someone later on, make sure you save your seats. By about six or seven, you sometimes literally can't move. It can be very touristy, and the basic food is popular. If you're lucky enough to get into the snug bar around the corner, you might be stuck there for life. And the cosy cubicles around in the main bar soon fill up too... (there's a photo in the NPG of Marianne Faithfull sitting at one.) The music can occasionally become a bit too loud, but the bar staff are pretty swift and efficient. Prices are high, but what do you expect in St. Martins Lane? The landlord knows the customers (in how many West End pubs can you say that?) In its previous existence as an exclusively gay pub, the Salisbury was a pick-up joint - with deeply unfriendly straight staff, and strange men staring at other strange men in the Victorian mirrors. The Dive Bar in the Kings Head was much nicer.
26 Feb 2012 19:09
For those who have drunk in Soho for many years, this is the successor to the late and lamented Kings Head of Gerrard Street in Chinatown (now turned into yet another Chinese restaurant). If you drank in the KH about 30 years ago, you'll remember the notorious Dive Bar, and the crowded upstairs bar. 'M' worked in the KH for more years than he cares to remember, and now here he is at the Blue Posts - just as fast, just as funny, and with the same ability to recognise people from years before. Dive Bar regulars will remember barman 'P', who now sits in the Blue Posts reading his paper every day - as if still keeping an eye on proceedings. The Blue Posts is a quiet place to read a book or paper in the afternoon, but prepare to get squeezed against the bar in the weekday evenings. The food is basic but popular, and the pub has been spared the horrors of (usually unwanted and unnecessary) refurbishment. There is a real atmsophere in here - 'M' actually knows his customers. So many pubs in Soho and further afield in the West End are soulless and landlord-less (a landlord is not a bloke no-one's ever seen, who no-one knows, and spends his time upstairs watching the TV or counting his takings). Try and find a pool of light in which to see anything (never mind a newspaper) in Waxy O'Connors - and none of the half a dozen bars are free from deafening music. The Blue Posts has some exotic customers, and some equally exotic barstaff. The jazz on Sundays is good, and when I was in there once on my way to the Palladium to see Jack Jones I was almost late...
26 Feb 2012 18:51
A pub for heavy drinkers. Whatever they try to do to it, it's always faintly depressing somehow. Admittedly, it's a bit lighter than it used to be, but one always expects something awful to happen... Its time as Oscar's was short and unimpressive (the pictures of Oscar Wilde gave the wrong impression to some of the more rigidly heterosexual men of St. Albans, who deserted it...), and now at least it's back to the White Swan again. Albanians of a certain vintage still call it the Mucky Duck. The peeling sign outside hardly inspires confidence, but if you want to drown your sorrows, this is the place for you.
26 Feb 2012 18:34
The White Hart Tap, St Albans
The best pub in St. Albans, now run by long-standing landlord 'S' together with newcomer 'A' (a refugee from the downsizing in the world of financial services). The food is excellent, and you don't suddenly get blasted with deafening music when you're trying to read a newspaper. The bar staff are very good, and the regulars really ARE regulars. The quiz night makes Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons look like a vicar's tea party.
26 Apr 2012 20:02