The Salutation, Hammersmith, W6

Visited 02/03/26. Visited previously 02/08/23. Cask here was LPride and ESB with two unused handpumps. Keg was Amstel, Peroni, Moretti, Guinness, Cornish Orchards cider, Neck Oil, Cruz, Brixton Reliance Pale Ale, Singha. The latter was also served in a 3-litre tower for £45 as an “amazing deal”, which was actually more expensive than buying by the pint!!! This Fullers pub is ostensibly a Thai restaurant with a bar area. It is a long rectangle from the front with a rear paved beer garden (advertised as a secret garden but you can see it by looking through the front entrance). The bar counter is an L shape off the left-hand wall mid venue with a slate skirt. There are fabric banquettes along the right-hand wall serving regular tables with otherwise regular tables and chairs in the floor space in front of and around the bar counter. The rear part before the secret beer garden has the same slate tiles as around the bar counter and a mixture of regular and tall table seating. The rear beer garden is quite attractive with decent seating options. Screens were switched off during my visit and an ABBA soundtrack in play. Whilst I love Thai food, not sure I want my purely drinking pub visits to have a pervasive smell of the cuisine. If you aren’t keen on Fullers pubs and Thai food then this really isn’t going to be the place for you!

A nice-looking town pub but amazingly dead inside with rows of tables waiting for non-existent diners and a central European barmaid not especially interested in serving. Just London Pride and ESB on handpump, not in the greatest condition but still overpriced. Crying out for an enthusiastic manager to kick it back into life, but I fear closure or conversion into a trendy eatery is more likely.

Superb looking pub from the outside but more geared towards food than beer! ESB and an average Pride on when I called in. Glad to have popped in but I wouldn't rush back!

As mentioned, this dates back to 1727 as a coaching inn, now grade II-listed and rebuilt in 1910 by A. P. Killick for Fuller Smith Turner, the name visible in faience tiling, along with fantastic mauve and lilac tiling, blue tiling in the entrance vestibule. The pub is still owned by Fuller’s, but the beautiful façade is where the joy ends and abruptly too. On entering, I was fair punched in the face by the overpowering stink of fish sauce, as Thai food is the order of the day here, which I like – in a Thai restaurant. The floor is pale and modern, in what is in effect a fairly large opened out affair. Walls are part panelled and smoky blue, white above to a modern white ceiling with recessed spotlights, all of which can be seen on the pub website’s gallery, along with the not-so-secret ‘secret’ garden; all very corporate, especially the exposed air handling ductwork above the bar back. The skeleton of a fish on a finished plate of food which greeted me on arrival, had yet to be cleared when I left, 20 minutes later. Customers were mixed, including at least one young child. The ale range held no surprises, with Seafarer, Pride, Hophead (off) and ESB at £2.40 a half, too cold and not tasting anything like the ESB I remember of old. This is a very bland pub experience, but it’s downhill from here as you make your way back to the Tube.