Strongroom EC2

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London: Shoreditch and Hoxton

Strongroom Bar, London EC2

Bar (Independent)
120 Curtain Road EC2A 3SQ
T 020 7426 5103 w www.strongroombar.com f strongroombar tw strongroombar
Open 1000 (1200 Sat-Sun)-2400 (2300 Mon, 0100 Thu, 0200 Fri-Sat, 2200 Sun).
Cask beer None, Other beer 7 keg, 25+ bottles, Also A few wines, specialist spirits.
Food International main courses, salads, burgers, Outdoor Benches in yard, Wifi.
Wed,Sun live music, Thu-Sat DJs, occasional big screen sport, table football, seasonal events, beer festivals.

Shoreditch’s current status as one of London’s most youthful and creative districts owes much to the Strongroom, a recording studio established in 1985 in a former furniture warehouse on a courtyard off Curtain Road, in surroundings that were then a tangle of poor housing, decrepit workshops and a traffic choked one way system. The studio shared space with designers including Jamie Reid, the iconographer of the punk era, notorious for his image of the Queen with a safety pin through her lip. A bar, originally known as the Weary Traveller, was added in 1997, becoming a mainstay of a burgeoning local scene.

Still under the same ownership as the studio, the Strongroom Bar, as it’s now called, is well worn in, friendly and much less painfully trendy than some of its neighbours. Proving that plenty of punks were hippies at heart, it chills out over two floors, with distressed sofas, Reid artwork and psychedelic mandala celings. Recently it’s been strengthening its beer offer, with quality imported kegs from the likes of Paulaner, Rothaus and Stiegl, a stout commissioned from Hepworth, occasional UK craft guests and a fridge featuring Kernel and Windsor & Eton alongside Belgian abbey and fruit beers. There’s no regular cask, but occasionally the lovely leafy courtyard outside hosts beer festivals, sometimes focusing on London beers. Informal international food is suitable for hungry musicians – char grilled halloumi and stuffed vine leaves, broad bean and ricotta fritters, veal and beef meatballs, burgers and breakfasts at reasonable prices for the area.

Pub trivia. Clients of the adjacent studio have included John Cale, Nick Cave, Dido, Kasabian, Moby, Olivia Newton John, Orbital, Placebo, Santana, the Ting Tings and the Who. Imagine all of that lot on stage at once.

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