The Marquis of Westminster, Pimlico, SW1

A modernised, stripped back pub with bare boards and limited decorations. It was the busiest pub we visited in the area but it all felt a bit shallow somehow and not especially welcoming. An upstairs dining room is signed as well as a cellar bar which holds occasional live music. The bank of handpumps offered London Pride, TT Landlord and Sharp's Atlantic, with Harvey's Best coming soon.

Victorian by just two years, this is an attractive ‘crooked’ corner pub, with a notable Watney Combe Reid brewery lantern with its stag motifs; the Watney’s Pimlico Stag brewery (now Stag Place) was just a stone’s throw from here. The previous reviews mainly still stack up, despite a makeover in 2019. The floor’s bare scrubbed, furniture is mixed height and fairly modern, and a designated dog area is under a drinking ledge. The wall is black field panelled to the dado, then off-white walls, with a white ceiling including recessed LED downlighters, to complement modern chandeliers, with clear glass shades over the bar which looks modern, with a tubular steel gantry on high; the bar back is modern. Décor arrives in the form of some bridles which adorn a wall, along with framed prints; the overall is effect is like drinking in a trendy restaurant, rather than pub. Just the two ales here, with the endless tedium of Doom, the increasingly unimaginative Landlord and the not much more interesting Ghost Ship at £2.75 a half and good. Customers were young, some appeared local, others obviously office workers and almost all very noisy. As mentioned, this is a real jumble of a place, the drinker having to weave between tables to get to the loo. The noise of the boisterous customers only added to the strain, so I won’t come back.

Official site of The Marquis of Westminster - www.bestcitypubs.co.uk

Official site of The Marquis of Westminster - www.bestcitypubs.co.uk

A multi-layered gastro pub as described below being a ground floor pub with dining restaurant above and then a cellar cocktail bar which can be privately hired out. I also restricted myself to the pub section which is the traditional gastro make out that you haven’t already seen tons of times before and I also thought the cluttered seating arrangements wasn’t that conducive to it being a comfortable spot. It doesn’t rate too badly on trip advisor for its food , but I was only here for the beer and was happy enough perched up the bar with a passable Adnams Ghost ship. Remember seeing Purity UBU on one of the other pumps but I don’t think all five were in operation for my visit. Might well return here if looking for somewhere to eat in the area but also cannot really see myself returning for a beer session, it’s not really that sort of place.

This is a pub seemingly trying to be all things under one roof, the ground floor is a fairly standard issue pub, there is a restaurant upstairs with formal seating and in the basement there is a cocktail bar. I naturally decided to stick with the ground floor option, a smallish L-shaped boarded room with partly green walls, partly swirly wallpaper. Traditional seating plus a long drinking shelf against a wall opposite the bar with high stools. Of interest was a large framed line drawing of London's skyline but generally the pub has a modern trendy feel with lots of loudly chattering groups of 20somethings sipping drinks, music playing and candelabras on the window cills. Food is served in the bar as well as upstairs, organic Cumberland sausage, mash and gravy £11.95), roasted red pepper risotto £10.95. Sunday roasts from £12.95 to £15.95 for beef rib. The beer selection was ok, five handpumps, Harvey's Sussex Best, Hop Back Summer Lightning, Sambrook's Wandle, Adnam's Explorer plus pub branded Marquis Ale* apparently by Sambrook but showing as 4.2% so that wouldn't be either of their usual two brews. There is a meet the brewer event advertised for this Tuesday (14/05), 5pm, Timothy Taylor so despite the young and trendy feel, beer seems to be taken seriously. This place doesn't really meet my usual preferred pub profile, being a traditionalist, but I quite enjoyed my half hour or so spent here. I wouldn't make it a habit though. * Marquis Ale pump clips on sale at £2 a go.

There were three decent ales on in here – Harvey’s Best, Sambrook Wandle and Dorking Ruby. I didn’t see a menu, but there was a chalkboard on the wall advertising two lunch specials - some chicken liver, mash plus gravy, or macaroni cheese and salad for £5 a pop. Feeling peckish at 4.45 PM (lunch lasts until 5.0 PM in here) I had the macaroni which turned out to be some pasta with a bit of runny cheese sauce on it with the salad represented by a sprig of parsley. A bit overpriced at £5, but it filled a whole. This is a single room, relatively small corner-site pub with nothing very special about it. But it’s comfortable enough, with mainly banquette seating and normal tables and chairs, and without those other pub annoyances fruit and games machines; nor were there any tall tables/stools. It was fairly quiet when I arrived, with no music being played, but at around 5.00 it started to fill up with a fairly young crowd, including one large group who occupied all the seating near me. Perhaps the run-up to Christmas starts early around here. This seemed to be the cue to turn the music on, which helped to crank up the overall volume level, with punters having to shout at each other to be heard above the overall din. To be honest there’s nothing really wrong with this place – the beer selection’s OK and it’s fairly comfortable – but I found it just a bit too raucus for comfort. Maybe others appreciate it that way regarding it as having a robust and lively atmosphere, in which case good luck to them.