The Wigmore, Marylebone, W1

This place advertises itself as a “modern British Tavern” but felt more like a dining room with a bar attached, especially as every table is laid for dining and there’s a manned booking desk that you have to get past to enter. You can come in for just a drink and either stand up the bar or sit at a table. But standing at the bar is not that comfortable as you seem to be always in the way of the waitresses and if you sit the guy on the door tells you up front that he may have to move you if someone comes in to dine. The bar does have three ale pumps with Wainwright Gold, TT Landlord and one other I failed to record, and then a couple of keg stations with some craft options included. We went for the Wainwight Gold and it was served looking like an ice cream and had to be returned for topping up to a full pint and after that it wasn’t particularly good anyway. This may appeal to BBC executives if there are any left in their nearby building, but it didn’t appeal to me. I won’t be back.

Very upmarket 'tavern' attached to the posh Langham Hotel (but also with its own entrance). The furniture and decor may (deliberately) not be as swish as the waiters, but the high-ceilinged main bar and side dining room are certainly less sterile than one might expect. Better still, it does offer three real ales on handpump: Arbor Mosaic (£5.00 if you sit at the bar, 12.5% more with table service), Thornbridge's Lord Marples and Bayou Born from Beatnizk Republic.

Hotel type bar. One room with bar to the left. Four or five hand pumps - nothing of any strength.

Official site of The Wigmore - www.the-wigmore.co.uk