The Crown & Sceptre, W14

Visited 11/03/26. Visited previously 24/04/23. No cask. Keg offering of Guinness, Inch's, Neck Oil, Moretti, Amstel, Heineken. Venue that is the bar / pub on the ground floor of a hotel. Caught this one as the calm before the storm as a couple of large parties due in from the book fair at the nearby Olympia on my visit. The venue is bare boarded with the bar counter a three-sided affair on the lower level with some tall stool seating on the sides. Some tall tables with tall stools dotted around the sides of the bar counter. There is a DJ booth in the front right-hand corner and with glitter ball just inside the entrance and chandelier above the inner of the bar counter suggests this place has a party vibe. The raised seating area at the back provides some regular tables and chairs and there is a food serving hatch in the rear right-hand corner.

Official site of The Crown & Sceptre - www.crownandsceptre.uk

Official site of The Crown & Sceptre - www.crownandsceptre.uk

Dating from the late 18th century, this place is nestled in a rather dowdy part of Holland Park, situated on the inexplicably un-gentrified Holland Road. Claiming that it’s a ‘…stone’s throw from Notting Hill Gate’ (it isn’t), this place doubles as a hotel and gastropub, with a very contemporary interior. The bar’s to the right, mirrored, with brass tubing. The floor’s boarded, the left and rear areas are raised, separated with balustrades. Paint is pale grey to the dado, then paler grey to the walls and ceiling. Furniture is totally mixed and zoned, including cloth upholstered banquettes; décor comprises potted plants including some large potted palms, trendy framed prints to the walls and a large hanging hand painted cloth Cuban flag. Lighting is also mixed, with a selection of Victorian-style chandeliers, lamps with some hanging shades looking like Vietnamese paddy field workers’ hats, but distressed, as if subjected to a B52 raid; the most striking lighting feature, were the two distressed classical fluted columns to the front, with shades on top glowing red, looking for all the world like something from an Indiana Jones film. Customers amounted to just two elderly Irish geezers, for whom Biddy Mulligan’s round the corner was perhaps just too lively; so much for the pub’s claim to be ‘…at the centre of all the action’. I was presented with two pumps, both with pint glasses on the top to indicate they were out of action, so a half of Neck Oil it was at £3.20 a half, a veritable bargain, served by a friendly barman. Can this place really continue with so few customers?