Lamb & Flag, London

It's not the easiest pub to find in Covent Garden but that doesn't stop it becoming very busy at times with office workers and visitors often spilling into the street summer and winter! But, unlike many other pubs in the area, because it is slightly hidden away, it is not quite so touristy. The Grade II listed Lamb and Flag is to be found down Lazenby Court (an alley) from Floral Street or up Rose Street from Garrick Street.

Leased by Fuller's since October 2011, and fully owned since 2013, the pub underwent a sympathetic renovation before re-opening. Though no longer a free house (and thus the real ale selection is predominantly from the Fuller's stable), it remains an attractive and pleasant traditional pub without music, muzak or games machines.

The upstairs bar and restaurant, where the main food service is available (but, please note, food and drink is table service only upstairs) is named the Dryden Room, after the poet John Dryden, whose satirical writing made him many enemies as a result of which he was brutally beaten by hired thugs in the alley outside the pub in 1679. There are Latin inscriptions (with translations) on the wooden beams commemorating this ambush. When he was working in nearby Catherine Street, the novelist Charles Dickens was also a regular here, as was, it is said, Karl Marx.

The ground floor bar consists of two small dark rooms with down-lighters, low beams, wood panelling and bare floorboards. The back room has a fireplace and plain wooden seats.

Brass plaques dotted around the bar commemorate where regulars of the past always stood, and the tradition is still kept up now.