The bar area of the Pelican pub in Notting Hill
Credit: The Pelican

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Besides queuing, apologising for things that aren’t our fault, and offering up a ‘nice cup of tea’ as the solution for – quite literally – any problem; there are very few arts we Brits have mastered quite as successfully as that of the humble pub. And you’d hope so considering that there are over 40,000 of them dotted across the country. But with the sheer abundance of alehouses, it’s pretty difficult to know which of them are the best of the bunch, right?

The lovely lot over at the Good Food Guide have done the hard work for us, though. They went on the ultimate pub crawl, scouring the length and breadth of the country to uncover the best boozers in the business. I mean, someone’s got to do it, hey? They carefully collated their findings in partnership with Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, and have now revealed their first ever list of the 100 best pubs in Britain.

The exterior of the Waterman's Arms in BarnesCredit: cktravels.com, Shutterstock

The handy list is a roll call of the most wonderful watering holes in the UK, raising a glass to ‘proper pubs serving proper food and beer’. And out of the 100 pubs that earnt themselves a comfy seat at the table; twelve of them are in London. We’ll most certainly drink to that!

The London boozer that nabbed the highest spot on the list is The Pelican. Coming in at seventh place overall, the Notting Hill hotspot is a cosy and classic pub, serving up delicious grub made with sustainable and high-quality British ingredients. The Pelican has earnt itself a rather impressive reputation since reopening in 2022, and is known for being a bit of a ‘celebrity magnet’. The likes of Dua Lipa, David Walliams, and Olivia Wilde are all famous faces that frequent The Pelican, so it’s certainly doing something right. Other London pubs to have made the cut include The Parakeet in Kentish Town, The Devonshire in Soho, and The Tamil Crown in Islington.

People stood outside the Devonshire pub in Soho in the eveningCredit: Elena Rostunova, Shutterstock The best pubs in London (according to the Good Food Guide):

  1. The Pelican, Notting Hill (7th overall)
  2. The Eagle, Farringdon (11th overall)
  3. The Kerfield Arms, Camberwell (14th overall)
  4. The Parakeet, Kentish Town (22nd overall)
  5. The Devonshire, Soho (28th overall)
  6. The Waterman’s Arm, Barnes (30th overall)
  7. The Canton Arms, Stockwell (43rd overall)
  8. The Camberwell Arms, Camberwell (46th overall)
  9. The Anglesea Arms, Hammersmith (55th overall)
  10. The Anchor and Hope, Waterloo (58th overall)
  11. The Tamil Crown, Islington (69th overall)
  12. The Surprise, Chelsea (90th overall)

You can have a nosey at the Good Food Guide’s full list of Britain’s 100 best pubs here.