Red Lion, Soho, W1

Quite sedate looking for a Sam Smiths pub.No cask beer thank god so had keg India pale ale.Ok ipa.Good bottle selection but toooo expensive.

This is a Sam Smith’s pub, and this one only had the keg version of Old Brewery Bitter available. Being a Sam Smith’s pub the interior is largely unspoilt, although I gathered from the lady behind the bar that there has been some alteration resulting in it being opened up a bit. You enter the pub into a corrider, with a separate bar (probably the old public bar) on the left. Continuing down the corrider it opens up into a largish room that would probably have been the lounge, or saloon, bar at some stage. I was also told that the staircase had been moved in years past for some reason. The old public bar is a small room (just two or three tables and chairs), with some attractive fielded panelling covering the walls, and lattice windows to both Kingly Street outside and the pub corridor. There’s a “stable” type door leading to the street – unused normally but the top half was thankfully open during my visit to let in some welcome fresh air. I had a quick look at the back room on the way to the gents, and found it be fairly comfortably furnished with some banquettes and normal tables and chairs. The ale choice – or rather the lack of it – tends to deter me from Sam Smith’s pubs, but this one, like so many of this brewery’s pubs, retains a lot of original character. This one also had the advantage of being reasonably quiet when every pub I visited on a hot evening in May was heaving with customers. It’s definitely wortha visit as long as you’re OK with keg bitter or lager. Interestingly I was refused permission to take photographs inside (a first for me) – I was told that it was Sam Smith’s policy.