The Charm of the Good Bad Pub

An anatomy of the best boozers in London Town

Photo credit: Little Visuals

London has many pubs. Some of them are truly great: storied places with roaring fires, interesting architecture and first-rate food. It also has many bad ones: identikit bars owned by highly leveraged investment groups that dress up a non-existent history, blast loud music, and serve either pointlessly expensive or suspiciously cheap drinks. Between these two extremes sits another charming option – the Good Bad Pub. They are invariably the best place to get a drink in the capital.

The GBP excels in its averageness. It is resplendent in being somewhere you would never make a long trip for but is perfect when you stumble upon it. They sit at the centre of the spectrum of public hostelries and are all the better for it. You would never take a date there, but equally, you'd never get glassed. These places satiate your need for a drink in the afternoon or evening without ripping you off or being in any way irritating. Pubs that are good are Good because they deliver exactly what you need, even though so much about them teeters towards the Bad. Not one will ever make a Time Out list or TikTok of the pubs you absolutely have to visit, but they are perfect to stumble upon when you are parched.

Increasingly, they are rare gems. Lacking the brutal efficiency of the PE-backed pubcos or the upselling potential of the fancy places, the GBP is beholden to tight margins and surging prices. Many falter and tend to find themselves repurposed into flats. Others get taken over and recycled into being either something chic or soulless. The gentrification of places like Shoreditch has seen its GBPs turn into houses of craft brews and dirty burgers – which can be fine but lacks the quintessential qualities of the GBP.

To start, a GBP must feel dated. It is not a thing that can be created in the present but is instead a product of the years. Its creation is more akin to geological processes than design choices. Or perhaps more something like evolution – a form of life that takes ages to develop but that can be wiped out in an instant.

Almost all of them are late Victorian or Edwardian buildings. Certainly, they existed before the Great War. Usually, they were built to accompany the housing boom London experienced in that era. They are most readily found surrounded by Victorian terraces, or else those great blocks built by the early philanthropists, Peabody's and Suttons and such, who had visions of cleared slums, adequate housing and a pub and a church nearby.

The pub's exterior will match this age. Most of the original features will remain. Perhaps some interesting brickwork or some cement rendering of a coat of arms will still be visible. Surviving, rather than maintained, the air of noble dilapidation will be obvious from afar. It will persist inside.

The interior of such a pub is what confirms it as a GBP. It will not have the optimised heartlessness of the big pubco, where standing areas encourage rapid drinking and deter loiterers. Nor will it have the artfulness of the genuinely good pub. Instead, there will be the décor of some time between the '60s and '80s: thick carpet, dark wood panelling, bench seats, low stools, and dark tables. All of it is vaguely tatty. Not fake, hipstery "distress" but simply the marks of decades of wear.

Beyond the bare bones, it will be decorated with bits of bric-a-brac and promotional tat from the breweries. There will be no overriding aesthetic to this. It will have been picked with no attempt at harmony or good design. A GBP will likely have TVs. They will show sport, but not Premier League football. They neither have the money for the subscription nor the bad ethics for a dodgy stream. Instead, there may be rugby, athletics, or even GAA if the pub has an Irish bent. The last one I went to was showing a Welsh stream of rugby. There might be a fruit machine, but at most one, and certainly nothing as knobheaded as a pool table or a jukebox. Drinking is the primary vice here.

The toilets, not to dwell on them too much, will be best described as functional. The locks on the doors will work. The hand dryer won't. There'll be no need for those signs about doing drugs or design quirks that make snorting off surfaces more difficult. Quite simply, as a pub, it attracts neither the clientele fun enough to be having a line between pints nor those desperate and downbeat enough to be junkies. Again, this place is just about smart enough to take a lady, provided you are no longer actively trying to impress her.

Of course, the real defining features of any pub go beyond the décor and amenities. The same is true of the GBP. It must chart a perfect course between mediocrity and excellence to be truly worthy of the name. At the bar, there will be three or four real ales on. Enough to give a choice, but so few that the barrel never goes stale. Alongside will be some of the better commercial lagers. These days, something like a Camden Helles might be on tap.

Beyond that, things will be more limited. The wine will come in colours rather than grapes or regions. It will be a screw top but priced accordingly. The spirit selection will be limited to perhaps one or two choices of each, all of which you would recognise from a supermarket shelf. There are no cocktails, no fancy glasses. Nothing resembling a drinks menu. Those are the preserve of places far more wanky than the GBP.

The GBP will, however, serve food. However, it will be within strict parameters. It will be better than the sling'n'ping cuisine of the microwave-heavy bad pub. There will be six or seven choices, almost all of them fried, and only one of them vegetarian. The menu will be card, unbound, but with that soft lamination that makes it wipe clean but still bendable. There will be no unnecessary adjectives on it. Nothing "artisanal" or "ethically sourced", no sign of a sous vide. It is pub grub for filling you up between a couple of pints.

You will order everything at the bar, but you probably will not have a table number. They will, at least, take card. Waving and saying "over there" will be enough. After all, the staff are another key feature of the GBP. The proprietor will be a proper landlord. The rest of the staff might be vaguely related to him or at least will know the place well. It will not have the same churn of casual bar staff as a chain. They will be familiar with a handful of regulars and treat incomers with an affable charm. There will be neither disinterest nor faux, highly coached attempts at camaraderie.

Thus, you will find the GBP something that sits between the worlds of the purely good and purely bad. It's a vanishing thing in London, squeezed between the financial pressures that demand ever-greater optimisation or collapse. It harkens back to something the capital is losing: an unsophisticated realism and an everyday charm. Other pubs end up draped in faux medievalism or hyper-modernism, where the GBP continues to sit between the two, an enduring link between the present and the past – unstuffy, genuine, and a great place to grab a drink.

They will never get into the guidebooks or the Best of Lists. It would be a tragedy if they did, as an influx of tourists would upset the vibe of tradesmen, retirees and students that are the mainstay of these cheaply cheerful places. But for those with the knowledge, or the nose, to find them, they can be some of London's most enjoyable boozers. So, while the Great Wen has many pubs, good and bad, the real drinkers find perfection in between them.

Below the line - some pointers on where to find the ideal GBP.