Popination Delegation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: London Popinations PART TWO!

Popinations covered in today’s entry: The Plough, The Crown, The All Bar One, The Crutched Friar.

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So on my recent honeymoon trip to London, we practiced a pattern of one museum (or other historical monument) and then at least 2 pubs per day of our stay. This made for a good array of different experiences, as well as allowing me to pursue my quest for the quintessential London pub experience. Even though we did this, I realize I still have barely scratched the surface. It is London, after all.

The Plough was my first real British-British pub.

The Plough and then the Crown

We went to the Plough on Day Two right after our visit to the British Museum mainly because it was so near the museum. And right after the Plough, we found the Crown. Even though we’d visited Harry’s Bar and two hotel bars the day before upon our arrival, they didn’t really give the English Pub Vibe™ as much as they were indeed pleasant. But the Plough really delivered: I had a London Pride as my first official London pub pint and I couldn’t have been happier. Except then we found the Crown, down the street and around a corner (I think? That’s how I remember it, but then I am not possessed with The Knowledge*).

I liked the Crown better—it was a little bit of a chummier vibe and even more classically pubby decor than the Plough had. My husband and I found a cozy snug that lived up to its name, and very much enjoyed our pints as we chatted about what we’d liked most about the museum.

*The Knowledge refers to the ridiculously complete mastery of the highways but especially byways of London, that its cabbies must possess, before they’ll be allowed a license to practice in the city. It was called this (I believe? no research for Popinations, remember) beginning in early Victorian times, but it’s still called that! I was delighted to hear one of our cabbies (the one who drove us back to the airport, I think it was) use the old term to describe it, and how difficult the test was he’d had to take. But then he also said that most cabbies these days just use GPS. Which, I totally understand, of course, but still. Kinda makes me sad.

The Crown looked so classic and it really was.

Before our trip, we’d done a little light research on the pubs we thought we wanted to visit by virtue of a couple delightful YouTube creators who took their viewers on delightful little pub crawls and made recommendations accordingly. But overall, we didn’t want to have a strict itinerary, just a basic idea of what we wanted and then we’d explore on foot and on the Tube. Most surprises were fantastic, even the joyfully loud football fans who accompanied us to and fro the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Day Three.

The All Bar One was way more bistro-y. Not in a bad way.

All Bar One, One For All Bar

The All Bar One was much more modern and bistro-like; not really a British feel to this bar but it was nice withal, and the food looked great. I was surprised to find the consistent QR code process of remote ordering when it comes to food in all the pubs and bars we went to—it’s not that Colorado never has menus with QR codes, but in most bars here (even dive bars), you have a server of some kind take your order, and even bring you drinks where you’re sitting. In the London places we went to, except the hotel bars, the service was very different —pubs didn’t have a server come to your table till the food you remotely ordered was delivered. And you to go up to the bar to get a drink, paying for each as you go (no open tabs here, again except for the hotel bars).

Is he crutched? Hard to tell.

The Crutched Friar

To be honest, this pub blends with several others in my memory. I can’t recall distinct details, except for this fat fair fellow on the wall. To be fair, a few of the pubs we went to had an almost identical aesthetic, if not vibe. Even if not owned by the same brewery or whatevs, some of them were just sort of…the same. Some do stand out, for various reasons, but this one didn’t.

So this trip was a vasty array of pubs. It’s been fascinating, too, to look through all my snapshots and sort out the various cool sounding pub names, filter the memories through the pictorial proof of my presence there, and try to pin down the emotional reaction from each. Some of them I really connected to more than others, and some were important for other reasons too, like the really really old one we had to search hard and go on a journey to find. Once there, I swear I felt Elizabethan ghosts around me, but that one will get its own essay itself, never fret. But.

More to come next week.