The White Lion, Covent Garden, WC2

a very small and fairly dull Nicholsons pub in central London. this kind of pub is ten a penny around here and this does little to stand out. Doom Bar, London Pride and a few other pale dishwaters available tonight.

A traditional corner pub in Covent Garden, handy for the tube station, with the usual one room downstairs and dining room upstairs. Not a bad pub but can get stupidly busy. The draught beer range was Doom Bar, London Pride, Nicholson's house St Austell ale and two from Great Yorkshire Brewing

This pub must have one of the most prime locations in the whole of the UK, situated as it is between Covent Garden tube station and Market. The pub is a small Nicholson's outlet with a simple, compact ground floor bar and upstairs restaurant. The bar has exposed floorboards and walls painted in dark shades to match the room's various dark wood fittings. The servery runs along the rear wall and has a nice dark wood counter and a less impressive modern bar back which was mostly obscured by countless Six Nations flags. Seating is limited to to an L-shaped banquette under the front windows and down the left hand wall, supplemented by numerous low stools. The left hand wall has a lot of Punch and Judy themed imagery on display - a reference to Samuel Pepys' diary entry which mentions the first recorded performance of a Punch and Judy show in the UK in the nearby Covent Garden Piazza. Aside from this, there's not all that much room for visual distraction. I spotted a couple of plain mirrors and a TV screen that was turned off in favour of background music, although the Six Nations promotional material throughout the pub suggest that live sports might get an airing. Elsewhere, there is a nice decorative metalwork sign over the front entrance and some smart lighting fixtures that help keep up the pretence of this being an historic pub interior. The dining room is reached by a staircase at the far end of the room - it is called the Bedford Bar, but I didn't bother going up to have a look around. A typical Nicholson's mix of national standards and obscure regional brews graced the long row of handpulls, with options on this visit comprising Sharps Doom Bar, Nicholson's Pale Ale, Hogs Back TEA, Knops Musselburgh Broke, Everards Sly Fox and Bad Co Whiter Shade of Pale. I tried a pint of the latter which clocked in at a wallet-emptying £4.90 for a 3.4% session beer. The pint was in acceptable condition but tasted very thin, with the flavour feeling a little diluted. The bar staff were very friendly, extending a genuinely warm welcome to all-comers which is very rare in Central London, especially in chain pubs such as this. This is a pretty decent little pub with a surprisingly modest amount of customers on a midweek evening visit, although I can imagine there are times when it gets unbearably busy. The friendly welcome and decent ale range are definite plus points but the prohibitive prices mean that the place is probably better left to the passing tourists.

A small Nicholson's pub with a plain interior. 9 real ale taps some doubles.

A fairly compact, street-corner pub just off of Covent Garden, it’s inevitably quite busy given it’s location but at least manages to maintain a traditional ambience with a decent selection of beers available. The pub is split in to two rooms with a downstairs bar and a restaurant on the upper level. The restaurant had wooden boards on the floor and green paintwork, some it very dark and some pale along with dark wood panelling on the lower part of the walls. A number of pictures were dotted around, consisting primarily of old black and white photographs of the market and a selection of vehicles from the nearby London Transport museum. There is also a small bar counter here with a reduced range of drinks. They had squeezed in as may tables as possible so you did feel a bit squashed in and on top of your neighbours. Downstairs looked broadly similar décor wise, with some unusual lamp shades above the bar that looked like upside down trifle dishes. The menu offered a good selection of pub grub dishes such as sausage & mash, scampi & chips, lamb bhuna, etc., as well as a number of burgers and these were mostly priced around the £10 mark which seemed not unreasonable given the location. Our Ocean Pie and Chicken & Mushroom Pie were both decent enough, although the accompanying green beans were somewhat rubbery. There was a good choice of beers on tap with Nicholson’s Pale Ale, Nicholson’s Festivity Ale, Rev James, London Pride, Sambrook’s Powerhouse Porter, Jarrow Rivet Catcher, Truman’s Runner, Bass and Doom bar. The solitary cider was Mortimer Orchard. Overall I thought this was a decent pub considering the very touristy location, although it’s a shame that one of the waitresses had such a poor grasp of English which made ordering a drink somewhat difficult.