The Montagu Pyke (Lloyds No.1 Bar), Soho, WC2

A Spoons (well, a Lloyds technically) in the building that was the second incarnation of the Marquee Club (the odd musical artefact is on display as are pictures of artists who didn’t play this venue!) so you can have half a guess as to how the interior pans out – down a few steps to a sunken main bar with a small section beyond. Fairly modern colour scheme, cream and red with purple lighting but not much in the way interesting internal architecture. Due to the location the place gets seriously busy at weekends and the furniture is packed in tight enough to make a battery hen complain. Six pumps with four guest ales. Sadly my Windsor & Eton Knot was tired and hazy (NBSS 1.5). It’s good to know it’s here but won’t be a Spoons I’d seek out specifically for a return.

A good sized Wetherspoon’s in what appears to be a former concert hall, first impressions were that it was quite small with no real ale on tap. Very odd I thought, until I realised that I had actually come in the back entrance from Greek Street and this was a secondary bar counter with another, larger one further on in the main body of the pub. Once you get past this small back bar area, it opens out in to a large double height room, with a rounded ceiling that had a few porthole style windows in and a mezzanine level floor that had a glass balustrade to make the most of the views over the ground floor area. A couple of gig posters for bands such as The Who were on the walls. Perhaps they played here back in the day. A very large projector screen took up almost the whole of an end wall, although fortunately this was not in use on our visit. Décor wise it was fairly unremarkable, with a mixture of cream and deep red paintwork and a polished wood floor in the main part of the pub. A number of wooden seating booths were down one side. Beers on tap were London Pride, Bellhaven’s Robert Burns, Doom Bar, Peerless Lottie Dod, Fuggle Dee Dum and Scrum Down. Ciders meanwhile were well represented with Thatcher’s Gold, Magners, Strongbow and Strongbow Dark Fruit.

Huge sprawling pub that was rammed solid on a saturday night,in fact it was a bit of a cattle market, however a good selection of beer with the Titanic Stout probably the pick at £ 3.40 a pint. I have been in worse places.