October 2024. Highgate. London.
I left the Wrestlers to the sound of Sultans of Swing, the best part of an average London pub I was to realise that night I’d visited before, probably 20 years ago. Never mind, I’d needed the loo, and an average London pub is better than an average Buckinghamshire pub.
An attractive descent past posh schools,
and pubs like the Red Lion & Sun and the Gatehouse that must have been GBG worthy once.
The Crown is the real newbie,
hard to tell its USP from outside,
but inside one of the cheeriest little pub atmospheres in a while,
the flies at the bar parting as if commanded by Moses to let me survey a beer range that screamed “Harvey’s, stupid“.
“Here, let me top that up“.
Some odd but characterful touches,
the Sussex Best the beer of the day, a chewy 3.5,
“Paint It Black” (Stones not Modettes) a change from Dire Straits, and a lovely barmaid who didn’t berate me for my epic failure to use contactless.
And then that view emerging into a London dusk.
Sometimes it all makes sense.
retiredmartin 