Greene Man, Fitzrovia, NW1

Just across the road from Great Portland Street tube station, this is a spacious, open-plan Greene King pub that seems to be one of their relatively recent acquisitions from Taylor Walker. The single room set-up is mostly bare boarded although a nice checkered tile strip runs around the servery area over on the left-hand side of the pub. The bar has a tongue and grove counter front painted in black and a full height dark wood shelving unit on the mirrored bar back. High tables and stools fill much of the space opposite and to the rear whilst bench and chair seating predominates to the front and in the raised dining area over to the right. Seating options are rounded out by some inviting looking button backed leather banquettes to the rear which looked like the best spot to grab and were unsurprisingly all taken on my Sunday evening visit. The room's open-plan layout is quite effectively masked by a series of quite large pillars plus a roughly centrally positioned staircase leading down to the toilets, which break things up nicely and give the impression of separate areas. The walls are a mix of bare brick, wood panelling and floral wallpaper, all decorated with old black and white photos, architectural drawings, plain mirrors, promotional blackboards and electronic screens plus several TV's showing muted darts with dance music playing in the background. For a Sunday night in the middle of Winter, I was a little surprised to find a lot of the customers were foreign tourists, perhaps heading here from their nearby hotels? A bank of five handpulls gave me some hope for interesting guest ales, but sadly three were unused, leaving me with a less than inspiring choice between Greene King London Glory and Hardy & Hanson Rockin' Rudolph. I went for the latter which was in good shape but a bit of an uninspiring malty mess of a beer. The retention of some of the pub's old Taylor Walker features serves only to highlight how little the Greene King acquisition has changed this place. Aside from the Greene King beer on the bar, there's little here to distinguish this place from score of Taylor Walker pubs across the capital. It' a decent enough place but not particularly memorable and not somewhere I'll be rushing back to, but it did the job for a pint in passing and is seemingly a good bet if you're staying in a nearby hotel.

Been in here before so no surprises. Large one roomed Greene King pub with bar to the left. Four/five hand pumps - passable Abbot Ale. Toilets downstairs.

A pub of this name has existed here since at least the mid-18th century when this was probably an idyllic drovers’ trail and not the depressing dual carriageway it is today. This pub looks as though it was rebuilt in the 1930s and was recently renamed the Greene Man, the ‘e’ suffix being added to indicate that this is no longer a Taylor Walker pub but is now under the aegis of Greene King. A first in here the other night and the décor has changed somewhat in the last 23 months – gone is the red colour scheme and faux traditional Victoriana. Being a central London pub in an area of this nature, the clientele is typically touristy and transient with perhaps some office workers during the week. Internally there are some slightly raised areas which are carpeted, otherwise it’s bare boarded with a tiled black and white chequerboard apron to the bar which runs along most of the left wall. There’s some bare brick and that which is painted - tongue and groove panelling – is the typical battleship grey hue. Illumination comes courtesy of some traditional fake Victorian brass ceiling lights. Furniture is conventional and mixed, high and low; tables feature cradles to hold the pictorial menus and sauce bottles. Sport was being broadcast on multiple TVs with the sound down so as not to interfere with the live folksy acoustic band – not bad, but so loud as to make conversation impossible, not that there were many in attendance to actually converse, even on a Saturday at 9.00 pm. Ales: Greene King’s IPA, Abbot and London Glory, Woodforde’s Wherry and Black Sheep at a steep £2.40 a half and good. We pretty much knew what to expect as a pub of this nature in this area holds few surprises but this and the fact that the pub closes at just 10.00 pm Monday to Saturday though oddly 10.30 on Sunday, means that a return visit is not on the cards – the Queen’s Head & Artichoke is another league by comparison and just 200 yards north of here.

Large pub facing the Euston Road with a fairly typical wooden floor and leather banquette feel to it. Several beers from the wider Green King range on offer plus TEA and Black Sheep at time of visit and condition seemed fair enough. Tolerable enough.

Official site of Greene Man - www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk

Official site of Greene Man - www.greeneking-pubs.co.uk