Turns out the entire borough considers the same three pubs a well-kept secret

Every single person I know in Islington has, at some point, told me about a “proper hidden gem” of a pub that “nobody knows about.” I have now visited eleven of these hidden gems. All eleven were, without exception, extremely busy on a Tuesday.

The Investigation

There is a specific kind of confidence London locals have when recommending a pub, the sort reserved for people who genuinely believe they alone have discovered something. I have started to suspect the entire borough is simply recommending the same handful of pubs to each other in an enormous, well-meaning circle of mutual self-deception.

One publican, when I gently pointed this out, simply shrugged and said, “well, it’s hidden from tourists,” which is technically true in the sense that tourists are presumably somewhere more sensible, not queuing for a Tuesday pint.

An Honourable Mention

I did find one genuinely quiet spot, a tiny place behind a launderette that I will not be naming here, partly out of journalistic integrity and partly because I have grown attached to having at least one pub I don’t have to queue for.

The London Prat ran a similarly doomed investigation into “secret” Shoreditch bars last year, with results I found deeply, comfortingly familiar.

Time Out London has its own running list of the city’s allegedly hidden gems, several of which appeared, predictably, on my own list.

The moral, I think, is that nothing in London is actually hidden. We have simply all agreed to pretend otherwise, for our own collective self-esteem.

More from me: Lowri Griffiths, prat.uk. Further reading: MyLondon.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com