Nobody will come to your table, you do not tip at the bar, and it is your round: a field guide to the capital’s living rooms
The London Pub, Explained for Visitors Who Are Afraid to Go In
You can spot them from across the room. They have come in from the cold, found a table, taken off their coats and sat down. Now they are waiting, with pleasant, expectant faces, for someone to come and take their order. Ten minutes pass. Fifteen. They begin to look about. Nobody is coming. Nobody was ever going to come. In the end one of them approaches the bar, puzzled and a little hurt, and the staff, who have seen it a thousand times, are perfectly kind about it.
The pub is the best thing about this country and it comes with no instructions. I have been explaining it to overseas friends for years. Here is the full briefing, so that you may walk in as though you were born on a bar stool.
You Order at the Bar
This is the great rule. In a traditional pub there is no table service for drinks. You go to the bar, order, pay there and then, and carry your drinks back yourself. If you are a group, send one or two people and let the others guard the table.
There is no formal queue at the bar and yet there is an order, which the staff keep in their heads. Stand where you can be seen, have your money or card visible and catch the bartender’s eye. Do not wave, call out or tap a coin on the counter. When your turn comes they will nod at you. If they turn to you ahead of someone who was waiting longer, the done thing is to point to that person and say they were first. You will be loved for it.
Some pubs now offer ordering by phone from a code on the table, and many that serve food will bring the plates to you. But assume the bar until told otherwise.
What to Ask For
Beer is sold by the pint or the half. If you simply ask for a beer, you will be asked which, so look at the pump handles. Lager is the cold, fizzy, pale sort familiar worldwide. Ale, or bitter, is the traditional British style, drawn by hand pump from a cask in the cellar. It is served cool, not chilled, with a gentle natural sparkle. Visitors sometimes call it warm and flat. It is neither. Ask for a taste before you commit; a decent pub will happily pour you a mouthful.
Cider is made from apples and is alcoholic, often strongly so. Wine comes in small, medium and large glasses, and a large is a third of a bottle. Every pub has soft drinks, and most have a good choice of low and no-alcohol beers. Nobody will think twice if you order a lime and soda.
The Round
If you drink with British people, you will meet the round. One person buys drinks for the whole group. When those are nearly finished, someone else buys the next lot, and so on until everyone has had a turn. It is a system of rough fairness and it is taken seriously. Skipping your turn is noticed and remembered for years.
If you do not want to keep pace, say so early and buy your own, or put in for one round and drink slowly. With a large group it is quite acceptable to split into smaller rounds. The phrase you need is, What are you having?
Tipping
You do not tip for drinks bought at the bar. It is not expected and attempting it may cause confusion. If you have had good company from the bartender over an evening you may say, and one for yourself, which invites them to add the price of a drink to your bill. For a meal served at the table, a service charge is often added automatically; check the bill, and if it is there you need add nothing.
Food
Pub food ranges from a packet of crisps to cooking of real ambition. The standards are fish and chips, pies, sausages and mash, burgers and a ploughman’s lunch of bread, cheese and pickle. The great occasion is the Sunday roast: roast meat or a vegetarian alternative with roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding and gravy, served from about noon until it runs out. Good pubs are booked up for Sunday lunch days ahead, so reserve.
Kitchens often close in the mid-afternoon and again well before the bar does. If you want dinner, do not leave it until nine.
Hours and Children
Most London pubs open late in the morning and close at around eleven at night, somewhat earlier on Sundays, with later hours in the centre at weekends. Shortly before closing a bell is rung and the staff call last orders. That is your final chance to buy a drink. A second bell means the bar is shut, and you have a short while to finish up.
The legal drinking age is eighteen and staff may ask for identification from anyone who looks under twenty-five, so carry some. Children are welcome in many pubs, especially those serving food, usually until early evening. Look for a sign or ask. Dogs are welcome in a great many, and are generally the best behaved customers.
Choosing a Good One
Avoid the pubs immediately beside the major tourist sights, which tend to be crowded and charmless. Walk two streets in any direction. Look for a place with hand pumps on the bar, a mixed crowd and no television louder than the conversation. London has hundreds of historic pubs with etched glass, dark wood and snug little rooms, some of them rebuilt soon after the Great Fire. The riverside pubs at Wapping, Hammersmith and Greenwich are lovely on a summer evening.
For reliable recommendations, Londonist has long kept an affectionate database of the capital’s pubs, and London The Inside and Time Out London cover new openings. The licensing laws, for the curious, are on GOV.UK.
The Language
You may hear the pub called the boozer, the local or the rub-a-dub. Cheers means both a toast and thank you. A swift half is rarely either. If someone offers to get them in, they are buying the round, and if they describe themselves as cream crackered they are tired. The guide to Cockney rhyming slang covers the rest.
Why It Matters
A pub is not a bar. It is a public living room, where you may sit for two hours over one drink with a newspaper and nobody will hurry you. Londoners of every sort use them, and a quiet weekday afternoon in a good one will tell you more about the city than any tour.
Pubs also sustain a great deal of the national humour, including that of this publication. The British satirical news and English satirical news pages owe more than a little to conversations held over a pint. Go in, go to the bar and say hello. More of my guides for visitors are on my author page at The London Prat.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/
