Captain Kidd, Wapping, E1

Looks shut from the outside, but panalled bar with river seat inside and terrace to the side. The Sam Smiths was a little poor, but fine interior

The cobbled entrance of the Captain Kidd leads to the front door straight ahead and lines of riverside picnic tables to the left. By the entrance are some armchairs and to the right are steps down to the toilets and a staircase up to the Gallows restaurant, not visited. The flagstone floor runs throughout and to the left is raised seating on floorboards. Here there is also a snug and access to the aforementioned picnic tables. At the rear is open plan seating and along the rear wall is some raised seating, the table to the left is in a bay that overhangs the Thames. This is a Sam Smiths pub, so there was no music meaning that the river could be heard lapping against the side of the pub. The fixtures and fittings are all dark wood, as is the U-shaped bar counter on the right wall. This décor and overcast skies outside made the pub feel very gloomy. The usual SS keg was available, as was Old Brewery Bitter from one of the two hand pumps. Food is available, the burgers are priced at £14 and unlike many SS pubs this one takes card payments. The American barman was a bit miserable, but there were only two other customers during my midweek afternoon visit so he must have been bored senseless. This place is worth a look, but now I’ve been I probably won’t return.

It looks like I visited a week before Blackthorn and his description is more than adequate, on my visit the OBB was off, not that I often drink that anyway, I went for my usual in Sams pubs , Extra Stout. The pub is ok for what it is and the interior looks good, not somewhere I'd linger too long though.

This doesn’t look particularly inviting from the outside, looking something like an old shop unit with the windows boarded over, but take the trouble to venture in and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. As soon as you get through the entranceway you find yourself in an attractive, open courtyard with a galleried old building to the left and a solid brick one to the right, both adorned with colourful hanging baskets. Internally it’s quite spacious, and although all one open plan room in something of a sideways U shape, it still manages to have a couple of distinct areas. It was a warehouse in a former life and that is still quite evident from the bare joists of the floor above and the large and very old looking chunky supporting pillars. Old flagstones covered the floor and the walls were a mixture of exposed brickwork and wooden boards that had been affixed as cladding. The windows and courtyard offered good views down the river to Canary Wharf whilst strings of fairly lights provided a cosy ambience. Seating was mostly tables and chairs, but also a scattering of padded bar stools, Chesterfield arm chairs and old church pews as well. All in all, I quite liked it in here, and whilst it may not have the same history and character of some of it’s nearby competitors, they have nonetheless done a good job of the conversion. Unfortunately this is a Sam Smith’s pub, so as usual the real ales were limited to their own Old Brewery Bitter. Likewise the cider was their own which is barely palatable, so I reluctantly settled for a half. The barman seemed quite clueless and clearly struggled with the concept of an orange juice & lemonade, asking if I wanted it in separate glasses. When he did eventually manage to rustle it up, that, and the half of cider, cost me a quite ridiculous £8.65.