Great Guns Social, SE1

As the Goldsmith’s Arms, this pub dates from the late 18th century, but must have been rebuilt in the 19th; to the Sawyer Street façade can be seen a relief of the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, with their motto: Justitia Virtutum Regina, all respectfully obscured with black paint, along with the rest of the stuccoed exterior. The current name dates from 2017, seemingly due to the place now being primarily a restaurant, where emerging young culinary talent – the Great Guns – can get a foothold socially. As such, the interior is heavily modernised with a boarded floor, modern bar array, shades of grey colour scheme, modern fluted mushroom colour vinyl banquettes, matching chairs, mixed trendy metal lampshades with filament bulbs, equally trendy black and white photos of rock stars such as Jagger, a large colour photo of Brigitte Bardot; the ceiling is a snakelike sprawl of ugly galvanised exposed steel ventilation ductwork. Aside from food, the place is clearly aimed at cocktails, the only draught beer being Moretti at a wincing £3.75 a half and that’s about all I can say. I don’t know what this place is like as a restaurant, nor would it seem does anyone else given that it was empty; it’s not my thing and seemingly no-one else’s thing either.

Facebook page of Great Guns Social - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Great Guns Social - www.facebook.com

Official site of Great Guns Social - www.greatgunssocial.com

Official site of Great Guns Social - www.greatgunssocial.com

The Goldsmith is a corner pub that is painted in typical London black. Once inside there is a smallish oblong shaped room with the bar facing,the room is bare boarded,the seating normal tables and chairs and one leather settee and two posh looking leather chairs to the rear right. There were three real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Sambrooks Wandle which went down well,the other beers were Portobello Star and Doom Bar. Decent background music was playing on my Tuesday afternoon visit. I was happy enough having a drink in this pub at a fairly quiet time of the day when the pub had a nice laid back feel to it. Pub visited 26/5/2015

This is a typical black painted pub. You just know what it's going to be like as you approach it. Bare-boarded of course; clipboard menus on the tables; gastro stuff on the bar counter; wine bottles on the bar back, chalkboards much in evidence, etc. But the furnishings were OK, with mainly normal tables and chairs but a couple of wicker armchairs to add a bit of diversity. Wall decor seemed to comprise of a couple of mirrors. I don't think that there were any fruit machines or others of their kind. But they did have some real ale on - Doom Bar, Brakspear's Bitter, and Whitstable Pale Ale (£2.10 a half). I didn't get close enough to the tables (it was too busy) to see a menu, but the inevitable chalkboard on the wall behind the bar listed some specials, with the "Thai red curry with steamed mussels, jasmine rice" weighing in at £13.50. Another chalkboard at the end of the bar counter advertised hot drinks, no doubt produced by the large shiny machine I also saw behind the bar. It included things like latte and mocca but didn't bother to have prices. This is a foody place, and the beer's not cheap. But for all that it's OK if you can bag one of the tables. However it's not really my kind of place, although it was doing a good trade when I dropped in on Wednesday evening.