Crown & Two Chairmen, Soho, W1

The Crown & Two Chairmen is situated pretty much in the dead centre of Soho making it convenienet from all angles if you know where you’re going through the myriad of lanes and alleys that make up the area. It is slightly larger that the average Soho pub and does have a slightly more up-market feel to it with the main bar having that now all too common stripped back trendy approach. The décor is quite plain with exposed brickwork, part stone, part wooden bare floors and a battered mix of unmatching furniture. Breweriana fans will spot the large Charringtons mirror that stands behind bar whislt sports fans will be glued to the flat screen TV on the central pillar. The music can be a bit on the thumpy side and is quite intrusive but seemed to generate a fairly bubbly atmosphere if you don’t mind shouting at your neighbour. There is an upstairs lounge bar although I didn’t venture that far. The Ale choice is a bit more interesting than most of its more unadventurous neighbours with Doom Bar, Purity Ubu, Fullers IPA and Sambrook Wandle available on my recent visit and nice to see pints served in an old fashioned dimpled mug. The Purity was £3.45 which is about par for the area. Aside from the ales it does have a good range of draught craft beers including Brewdog and Camden as well as several American and continental beers, mainly priced between £4/5. On top of that is a good selection of global bottled beers. The food is a notch up from the chain pub grub menus that you will find in most pubs in the area with main courses around £8-£16 although the fixed price menu seemed to be particularly good value on the assumption that the food is decent enough (I haven’t eaten here so can’t comment). The pub was quite busy and it was standing room only but that is often a problem among all soho pubs during the evenings. Given the ale selection I would certainly pop in for a couple again but it was perhaps a bit too hustle and bustle to make me want to stay for a longer session.

Official site of the Crown, contains menu and wine list - www.thecrownandtwochairmenw1.co.uk

Official site of the Crown, contains menu and wine list - www.thecrownandtwochairmenw1.co.uk

Have utilised the Crown and Two Chairman on a few occasions when it’s been standing room only in the nearby Dog and Duck. Can get quite busy as it is popular with the media & production crowd who ply their trade in this part of town, but I’ve always found it to be a decent enough pub. The main street level bar has a modern design interior albeit a bit on the dark side with large wood tables and chairs in the bar area and then a seating area at the back. This tends to be quite busy at most times, but I usually manage to find a seat in the fairly spacious upstairs Chairmans’s Lounge room which has comfortable settee type seating and its own serving bar area. There are five handpumps on the main bar but I’ve only ever seen two beers on offer, as it was the other night when two of the pumps were dispensing Doombar and one other with Sambrook Wandle with the others idle. And then these two beers were replicated again on the two pumps in the upstairs room. Both beers were in reasonable condition albeit at usual Soho prices.

I came to visit this pub by pure chance. Having been turned away from a packed De Hems on the night of the world cup final, I ventured down the road with a great many other Dutch fans and found this place showing the game on several screens throughout the building. The pub has a large open area with a few tables and high stools dotted around and more conventional pub seating to the rear of the room in an area perhaps best suited to those who choose to eat here. The conditions were clearly not representative of a normal night here, so it was a little difficult to judge the place, but staff coped admirably well with the huge volume of customers and the intense heat around the bar area. There were inevitable delays with the food, but we ordered a sharing platter, which was very good and more value for money than some of the other dishes on a seemingly expensive menu. There were five hand pumps, but just Sharp's Doom Bar and London Pride to choose from, plus Old Rosie Cider. The Doom Bar was very well kept and I sank several pints in a bid to keep myself refreshed in the heat. They also had a good range of international lagers available on draught including Peroni and Red Stripe. There was a cracking atmosphere during the game, including in the smaller upstairs room, which had a large screen to itself, and it was a shame that the result meant that there was a bit of an anti-climatic feeling at the end of the evening. A pleasant enough place and perhaps worth a second look when things are a bit calmer.

Randomness Guide to London - Crown And Two Chairmen entry

Randomness Guide to London - Crown And Two Chairmen entry