The Sussex Arms, Paddington, W2

One room in the modern style in spite of iron columns, some tongue and groove, a knobbly ceiling and cut glass mirrors still surviving here. Three pumps of better than average beer although I baulked at £5 a pint for London Pride. There are three big screens in quite a small space, showing music although European championship games were advertised. The staff weren't bad, especially for London and there was some table service, at those prices I should hope so.

Official site of The Sussex Arms - www.sussexarms.com

They had on London Pride, St Austell Tribute and Upham Brewery Punter (£2 a half, and a new one on me). There were no menus in sight when I was at around midday on Friday. This is a fairly smallish pub, with the main bar having the bar counter on the back wall, and with a few tables and chairs in another small room to the the left and rear of the servery. The main feature in this pub is the wood panelled ceiling, complete with small bosses that look a bit like light fittings. This feature is most unusual, and probably even unique in London. The place is bare-boarded with mainly normal tables and chairs, but with a half dozen or so large dark red armchairs – but no tall tables/tall stools! A handful of fairly meaningless prints decorate the walls, which are in fact dominated by the three TV screens tuned to some channel called “MTV”. There are a few seats outside at the front. I didn’t particularly enjoy my brief visit here, mainly because of the strong smell of cleaning products, and I didn’t much care for the “50 funk pop classic anthems” being shown on MTV and being churned out over the sound system. Perhaps others welcome this “music”, but I suspect it was being played for the benefit of the bar staff. The unusual ceiling was definitely the most memorable thing about my visit to this pub. It’s not one I’m likely to return to, although it does apparently have Cask Marque accreditation. But there’s nothing really wrong with it, and at another time it might be more comfortable and relaxing. It’s open from 10.00 AM to 11.00 PM every day, which is a plus.

Official site of The Sussex Arms - www.sussexarms.com