Old Pubs and Restaurants with the Latest Good Food
A visitor to London could hardly do better than get a feel of the history of the city by visiting a number of famous old pubs and restaurants.
The city is full of pubs and restaurants that have changed little over the centuries and the presence of historical old characters is almost palpable. This article is not an advert for specific establishments but the traveller will have little effort in identifying various establishments mentioned here from the minimum research.
The best thing before visiting London is to do your own research on old and historical pubs and restaurants in the city but also to include the newest and most successful.
Many Pubs have had to adapt and introduce meals thereby establishing the relatively new concept of the gastro pub. Many of these establishments offer a combination of old world charm with first class food and drinks.
With around fifty-two thousand pubs in the whole of the U.K. it is sobering to think that around fifteen per cent of that number is situated in the Greater London area. With a further five thousand restaurants in London the visitor has an almost unlimited choice in different foods and range of prices.
Getting back to the historical pubs and restaurants it is a treat to sit in some of the old east of the City riverside pubs and imagine the countless generations of sailors and merchants that have dunk there over the time when Britain really did rule the waves and had the greatest Empire in the history of the World.
From one of these Thames riverside pubs men would sit and cheer in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries every time a pirate was hanged in the river.
At full tide the river laps against the steps leading into the pub but at low tide a wooden post can be seen fifty feet away were the low water tide laps and this marked the spot where pirates would be tied at low tide.
The thousands of drinkers who lined the shore and filled this and other pubs that sadly are long gone, would drink and make merry as they watched the tide come in until it covered the head of the poor wretch.
Just to make sure, there was a second showing as the tide went out and in again. Obviously the man was dead by drowning before that second viewing so presumably the crowds were less and the beer cheaper!
Hundreds of other historical bars and restaurants London can claim other fascinating histories. For just another example there are a number of pubs just down from St. Paul's Cathedral into Fleet Street.
Fleet Street was until as recently as the nineteen eighties and nineties the centre of the newspaper business in the United Kingdom. Through three centuries until that time it was a haven of intrigue and gossip with most of the news revealed and talked about in the pubs, wine bars and restaurants that were scattered about.
Just up the other end of Fleet Street are the Criminal Courts of Justice and in the surrounding areas are some of the many hundreds of Judges and Barristers chambers that were mostly built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The mixture of law and press created an atmosphere that even with the disappearance of the press still hovers over the area and in any of the pubs and restaurants London you may enjoy an atmosphere that has existed for hundreds of years.
London is a city that one will never tire of and the best way to view it is to walk it. Duck and dive into any small alley in the City and the more off track you step the better it gets.
The city is full of pubs and restaurants that have changed little over the centuries and the presence of historical old characters is almost palpable. This article is not an advert for specific establishments but the traveller will have little effort in identifying various establishments mentioned here from the minimum research.
The best thing before visiting London is to do your own research on old and historical pubs and restaurants in the city but also to include the newest and most successful.
Many Pubs have had to adapt and introduce meals thereby establishing the relatively new concept of the gastro pub. Many of these establishments offer a combination of old world charm with first class food and drinks.
With around fifty-two thousand pubs in the whole of the U.K. it is sobering to think that around fifteen per cent of that number is situated in the Greater London area. With a further five thousand restaurants in London the visitor has an almost unlimited choice in different foods and range of prices.
Getting back to the historical pubs and restaurants it is a treat to sit in some of the old east of the City riverside pubs and imagine the countless generations of sailors and merchants that have dunk there over the time when Britain really did rule the waves and had the greatest Empire in the history of the World.
From one of these Thames riverside pubs men would sit and cheer in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries every time a pirate was hanged in the river.
At full tide the river laps against the steps leading into the pub but at low tide a wooden post can be seen fifty feet away were the low water tide laps and this marked the spot where pirates would be tied at low tide.
The thousands of drinkers who lined the shore and filled this and other pubs that sadly are long gone, would drink and make merry as they watched the tide come in until it covered the head of the poor wretch.
Just to make sure, there was a second showing as the tide went out and in again. Obviously the man was dead by drowning before that second viewing so presumably the crowds were less and the beer cheaper!
Hundreds of other historical bars and restaurants London can claim other fascinating histories. For just another example there are a number of pubs just down from St. Paul's Cathedral into Fleet Street.
Fleet Street was until as recently as the nineteen eighties and nineties the centre of the newspaper business in the United Kingdom. Through three centuries until that time it was a haven of intrigue and gossip with most of the news revealed and talked about in the pubs, wine bars and restaurants that were scattered about.
Just up the other end of Fleet Street are the Criminal Courts of Justice and in the surrounding areas are some of the many hundreds of Judges and Barristers chambers that were mostly built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The mixture of law and press created an atmosphere that even with the disappearance of the press still hovers over the area and in any of the pubs and restaurants London you may enjoy an atmosphere that has existed for hundreds of years.
London is a city that one will never tire of and the best way to view it is to walk it. Duck and dive into any small alley in the City and the more off track you step the better it gets.
