The Guinea, Mayfair, W1

Official site of The Guinea - www.theguinea.co.uk

Official site of The Guinea - www.theguinea.co.uk

*** CAMRA Heritage pub. First thing - don't bother to try and visit around 5-7pm during the working week as it'll be outside drinking, as I discovered. Inside is split in two; there’s a restaurant to the left which was zealously guarded by a bouncer and the bar is to right. It's quite neat and old fashioned here, to re-quote the previous reviewer “quite traditional in appearance with black wooden boards on the floor, black painted paper on the ceiling, dark green embossed wallpaper on the lower part of the walls and sandy colour paintwork above. Etched glass windows were at the front of the pub were draped with long red curtains. The walls were liberally covered in pictures, many of them portraits or caricatures”. Be-penguined staff, which I think rather suits the moneyed clientele that were in attendance and fair play they were very efficient. Run by Youngs for getting on for 150 years, so I read. Four cask available, 2x Youngs, St Austell Proper Job and a decent Harvey's Sussex Best (NBSS 3) for which I was mildly surprised to only (!) be charged £6.30. Sadly I had to spend most of my time outside getting rained on though I did eventually manage to sharp-elbow my way to small gap that had opened-up at the far end of the bar. One I’ve had on the ‘to-do’ list for a long time and despite the problems caused by its popularity and my late arrival, I thought it was worth the effort. 7.5

Back street, mews based pub that you have to go looking for. A front bar and restaurant to the side. Appear to trade of their pies, although all the awards detailed on the walls were from the 1990s. Very smartly dressed bar staff and very low lighting. Gave the appearance of a soho after hours drinking den, although in reality - its just a pub that takes pride in their service. Youngs range and Proper Job on offer. Former patrons, booze hounds such as Frank Sinatra, Richard Burton and Princess Margret. They knew what to look for in a pub :-)