The Open Guide to London: the free London guide - Differences between Version 5 and Version 4 of Princess Louise, WC1V 7BW

• Brewery: Samuel Smith's
• Address: 208 High Holborn, London WC1V 7BW
• Locale: Holborn / Bloomsbury
• Nearby Tube stops: Holborn

Drinks

Samuel Smith's range. Sam Smith's cider �2.16/pint. Only one hand-pulled bitter, a Sam Smith's one.

Food

Full meals are only served when the restaurant isn't taken up by a private party. Food is served till about 8:30pm. The snacks menu includes veg nachos (�3.95, not very good), meat nachos (�4.50), sandwiches from �2.25 and baguettes from �2.95.

Service and Ambience

No piped music downstairs, yey.

The interior of this place is well worth a look. Highly ornate, lots of mirrors. The ceiling is pretty amazing. The first time I came up the stairs from the basement loo I had to stop and stare at it for a bit. (That might have been the beer though.)

It's a Grade II listed building.

Layout

One large room downstairs with a long oval bar in the middle, and a selection of seating around the edges. Not cramped, but not incredibly spacious either. There's a restaurant upstairs and a few seats outside on the pavement.

Disabled Access and Other Facilities

The restaurant upstairs can be booked out (at no charge if there are 35 or more of you) as a function room. It seats about 30-35 comfortably for dinner, but I'd judge you could easily fit more in for a more general get-together. It's got its own bar, and generally looks like a very pleasant, airy room. Unfortunately the toilets are two floors down, in the basement.

I keep hearing about how amazing the gents' is -- the pub is "worth a visit just to see the gents toilets alone" according to fancyapint.com -- but the ladies' is pretty appalling; as I wrote to the London.pm mailing list: "one of the toilets wasn't really actually attached to anything other than the sewage pipe; you could slide it around on the floor and there was a bit of a disturbing puddle. And the only way to get into the middle cubicle was to climb over the seat; and both the soap dispensers were broken sufficiently that I got bored of trying to mend them before I managed to succeed."

Other Reviews

• pubs.com review
• FancyAPint? review
• e-street brief review and photo

Gatherings

The Princess Louise pub is used by the British Fantasy Society (BFS) for its monthly meeting. I have also attended a few book launches there though you do have to be invited -- AlexMcLintock