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Submitted on Sunday, 16^th June 2019
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Builders Arms, Kensington, W8

1 Kensington Court Place
W8
W8 5BJ

Phone: 02079376213

Correct details

Pub Type

Castle (Mitchells & Butlers)

Served areas

Kensington

Tweets by Builders Arms

The Builders Arms Stick on those thinking caps and make sure to join us this Tuesday night @thebuildersw8 in #Kensington for our week… https://t.co/LkpQJSkfGJ 1:17 PM Mar 16th 2020 from Question One - Auto Quizzer

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Reviews of Builders Arms (Average Rating: 6 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Graham Coombs left this review about Builders Arms

Good-looking pub from the outside but the interior is decidedly gastro, with the usual dark shades of grey colour scheme and rows of plain tables bearing menus on clipboards. They do seem to have kept an interest in ales though, with a new barrel properly pulled through for us. A row of outdoor tables is fenced off from the pavement. Draught beers were Landlord, Skinner's Betty Stogs, and Doom Bar with a Purity beer waiting to go on.

On 12^th June 2019 - rating: 7
[User has posted 3641 recommendations about 3576 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Pub SignMan left this review about Builders Arms

This is a spacious, open-plan back street, corner pub with a classic working class name and a decidedly more upmarket clientele. The front part of the pub comprises a large open space with large windows down two sides and two entrances. One porch, liberally draped with all sorts of greenery, leads out to a small front pavement seating area. The room is bare boarded and has lots of standard tables and chairs throughout, with a few plush armchairs and sofas over to the right hand side. The servery spans the rear wall and has a basic dark wood counter and an interesting bar back with a bright mosaic tile design depicting palm trees, for no apparent reason. Decor is fairly limited and what has been added is fairly uninspiring, with blackboards, plain mirrors and a very limited number of framed pictures providing the only forms of visual distraction. To the right of the bar, a lit fireplace was a nice focal point for those who’d just arrived on this chilly Autumn evening, whilst to the left, the room extends a way to the rear, where you’ll find a small space with a drinking ledge down one side and a couple of booths along the other – it’s a fairly dark and unwelcoming spot, but seemed popular enough on a busy midweek evening. The pub appeared to be packed with poseur types but a few students and tourists appeared over time and I ended up chatting endlessly to an American couple who were super-enthusiastic about all the pubs they’d been to in London – apart from this one!!
Four ales must qualify as an unexpectedly decent return for a pub like this, with customers given a choice of Black Sheep Holy Grail, Sharps Doom Bar, Taylor Landlord and Rudgate Hop For Heroes. I tried a pint of the latter and thought it was rather nice, which was a relief, as upon ordering, the barmaid somehow managed to smash a half pint glass that was trapped inside a pint glass, which she then used to serve my pint!
This place felt a bit like it was trying to be a refined, high-end pub suited to the locals, but fell a fair way short of achieving this, leaving us with a slightly pretentious feeling pub with nothing particularly marking it out from other such places in the area. I was happy enough here, chatting to my new American friends over a decent pint, but nothing here really grabbed me and made me want to rush back.

On 16^th January 2019 - rating: 6
[User has posted 3350 recommendations about 3350 pubs]

Please Note: This review is over a year old.