Randomness Guide to London

Welcome to another week in the company of your randomness guides.



Chances are you may have come across the Leicester Square basement wine bar original, but now there's a former pub in Hampstead renamed as Cork and Bottle, NW3 2QX and it's our featured article. Expect a range of furniture, a larger range of wines (and even some beer), and also some food, though that's likely to be the weakest element of the ambience.

No new pages, but significant updates to Mestizo, a longstanding Mexican on Hampstead Road alongside Euston which doesn't just do quesadillas but also caters to vegans et al., and The Windsor Castle in Carshalton, where all the cars live. They used to prohibit the use of mobile phones, but I wonder if they still do...

One possible closure is The Coach and Horses in Soho, which may even be closed right now. One definite closure is The Wallington Arms in Wallington, another failed experiment by Antic.

In positive news, The Cartoon Museum has reopened on Wells Street in Fitzrovia. We haven't been yet, but expect... cartoons?

Hello all! It's the busiest week of the year at my work, so thinking about places to eat and drink is always a pleasurable divertissement.



This week's featured article is the extravagantly-named Mandalay Golden Myanmar, NW6 2DB, where you can enjoy all your favourite Burmese food... or is it Myanmarese? I understand there's quite a bit of politics behind the naming of the country, and who would have guessed 10-20 years ago how we'd be thinking about Aung San Suu Kyi nowadays, eh? Ah well, there's still the food, and I'm certainly intrigued to try tea leaf salad, despite some of Kake's adjectives.

Two new entries are for The Hercules, which is the bar in the old Pillars of Hercules pub building, and Naughty Piglets, a wine bar ant tapas-y restaurant in Brixton with a twee name.

Loads of updates pages, mostly for pubs...
* Kulu Kulu in Soho, a Soho sushi place;
* The Duke of Argyll in Soho;
* The Newman Arms in Fitzrovia;
* The King William IV in Leyton;
* Browns of Brockley, a cafe in Brockley;
* The Nightingale on the Green in Wanstead;
* The North Star in Leytonstone;
* Domali, a cafe/bar in Crystal Palace;
* The Crown and Sceptre in Streatham;
* The Duke of Wellington in Belgravia;
* The Dog and Fox in Wimbledon "Village" if you will;
* The Aeronaut in Acton;
* The Roebuck in Hampstead;
* The Sir Richard Steele in Belsize Park;
* The Ivy House in lovely Nunhead;
* The Rye in Peckham;
* The Herne Tavern in East Dulwich; and
* Babur Indian restaurant in Forest Hill.

Finally, there are two reported permanent closures, being The French House, a French cafe in Crystal Palace (not the Soho pub!), and Mr Lawrence in Brockley, a sad loss to the area, which has been on the decline for some time but had been a fixture there for many decades.

Hello and welcome to another week of RGL.



The featured article this week is Flavours of Paani Puri, NW9 9EG, a vegetarian Indian cafe in Kingsbury. It looks from the outside like a convenience store but don't be fooled! It's great value too.

There are three new articles this week. We have for you Tea Cosy, a cafe in Upminster, like an upmarket greasy spoon I suppose, is that what "British cafe" means? There's also Ashley Brook Fabrics, a rare article about something not food- or drink-related, this one being a Romford fabric shop. Finally, there's Little Coffee Shop in South Croydon. I have a small quiz for you: guess what it is. Those who answered "it's a little coffee shop" win!

We have an update to the Crumpled Horn article, a pub out Upminster way.

Finally a bunch of reported closures for you: Muncho cafe in Croydon; The Case Is Altered pub in Harrow Weald; The King's Arms pub in East Molesey; The White Horse pub in Hampstead Heath (this one is always opening and closing); The Railway Wetherspoons pub in Putney; The Goldsmiths' Arms in East Acton; and The Duke of York in Chiswick.

Hello there, sorry for the delay. Kake tells me what's in the charts this week and it always then gets lost in the depthless mess that is currently my inbox. So this week's featured article is...



... the Ship and Shovell, WC2N 5PH, a charming and slightly hidden little pub, one of the few remaining outposts for Hall & Woodhouse (aka Badger) beers in the capital, as yet unsullied by any word of "craft" or the like. Just a row of handpulls dispensing classic and well-kept English bitters and pales (or "boring brown ales", though I don't mean that as any disrespect: I love the BBB). The pub is rather more interesting for its unusual twin-site arrangement, taking up buildings on both sides of the little alleyway. The north has the main bar, the south has the "Crow's Nest" upstairs.

Our one new article this week is for Garden Community Cafe, a community-focused greasy spoon by Prince Regent DLR out there past Canning Town.

Two reported permanent closures are The Old White Bear in Hampstead (which we felt had gone downhill since it was Ye Olde White Bear and was a proper real ale pub), and The Clifton in St John's Wood, one of very few pubs in the area and a delightful little getaway, so it's particularly sad to see this one go.

Finally, two more impending pub closures. There's The Star, also in St John's Wood because clearly nobody is drinking there anymore, or (more likely) property is worth more as residences. And then there's The Sekforde Arms in Clerkenwell, which your correspondent only visited for the first time a couple of years ago, and what a delightful unpretentious boozer it is, serving tip top Young's beers, and now sadly looking like it'll become a restaurant after only 185 years of sterling service to drinkers.

But at least there's a couple of reopenings, both following refurbishments, and both out in Twickenham: The Prince Blucher and The Eel Pie.

This week's featured article is Sagar, W6 9JT, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Hammersmith. I've been there and can recommend it.

New additions are: The White Swan, the only pub near Brent Cross (but thankfully an alright one); Vegetarian's Paradise, a bhel poori house near the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury; The Bricklayers' Arms, a pub in Beckenham; and The Garden Gate, a pub near Hampstead Heath station.

Permanent closures are: Coffee Republic's branch in Beckenham; and LiquidNation, a theme bar under the railway lines at Ladbroke Grove, which has probably been closed a while.