Portobello Gold

This review was published in January 2002

A Pub of the Year, it goes without saying, should be singular, and Portobello Gold is certainly that.

During the day, it's a sort of internet pub, with terminals in the bar. The restaurant at the back is blue lagoonish, semi-tropical; oysters a speciality. Chess and backgammon players are welcome; there are papers for the solitary, and pork scratchings for them as likes 'em.

The multi-faceted wine list is partnered by a cigar list; the beers, meanwhile, work hard in the cause of Anglo-Belgian friendship. (It's been 17 years since Michael Bell chucked out the Hell's Angels by alienating them with courtesy and fresh flowers - doesn't time fly?)