The Pride of Spitalfields, E1

Visited on a Saturday evening when the pub was heaving and overflowing onto the pavement. Despite this the staff were very friendly, but it maybe feels like it’s a victim of its own success. Glad it thrives in a tough world for pubs, but wouldn’t rush back unless in the area.

The Pride of Spitalfields is a small L-shaped boozer with red carpet throughout and a central L-shaped serving counter that supports standard and premium keg alongside five hand pumps that were drawing Fuller’s London Pride and ESB alongside Crouch Vale’s Brewer’s Gold, Doom Bar and the local Five Points Brewing’s XPA. The polite woman working the jump served me a very good pint of Pride for £5.30 that I supped sat at the beer on the rear wall. There’s more seating to the right of the entrance and a banquette is found under the left front window. More banquettes are found on the left-hand wall either side of a fireplace with burner. Obviously there’s a piano, which is found in the left rear corner by a step up to the tile floored toilets. There were no pianists in during my Wednesday afternoon visit so there was some background music playing. The black and white photos of the area in times gone by were interesting and I enjoyed my pint, but I don’t really get all the hype about this place if I’m being honest.

There's lots to like about this back street pub, just off Brick Lane and a destination pub for real ale aficionados. Or is it? I counted a dozen customers at the time of my 4pm visit and only one of them was on the cask beer; plus me, of course. There were five hand pumps, and my half of Railway Porter from Five Points was very good (NBSS 3.5) -see my photo for the other four. The bar counter has some old pump clips attached to the gantry (see photo), some of which were of interest to me: Hatters Mild from Robinsons (the wrong Hatters, of course: Stockport rather than Luton), and Barnsley Bitter from the original Barnsley Brewery. I liked it here, but the rather loud background music keeps it from scoring higher in my estimation. Date of visit: 10th January 2024)