The Red Lion

This is a lovely place to drink in the Westminster area. Met a few friends for drinks here and it has such an old world charm. It’s a Heritage Inn which has been open for a ridiculously long time. We found a place to sit inside which is really hard to do after work, but I guess we just got lucky. We didn’t try any food here. Just had more than a few pints of London’s pride and lots of conversation. I like to go here whenever I am in London. It always reminds me of a time gone by.

I love this pub totally. Very traditional English pub which is very hard to find in London nowadays.

Just stopped by during a walk through Hyde Park on the way to St. James Park. Very nice group of people. Cute, charming and traditional!

Great atmosphere for a drink. There are pictures of food on the site. No food is served here. So, if you are looking for a bite to eat along with your beer, this is not the place for you.

Near the Ritz but a little challenging to find at first. A classic little pub near Green Park. A nice place to grab a pint or two before turning in for the evening. Never made it to the upstairs lounge but plan to check it out on another visit.

This place is both awesome and weird.
We’ve been there before when seeming customers (friends of the staff? extreme regulars?) have stepped behind the bar to start serving drinks. That was just odd. Also, I’m pretty sure the 1^st time we were there a couple who may have been up to not-​so-​public acts in the lounge area!
That being said, The Red Lion is a proper old style pub. It feels like a series of sitting rooms in someone’s house. It’s got a great deal of seating and the upstairs lounge area is often available to sit in when downstairs is packed as people seem to not always know its there. The location is just fabulous, down a little passage that has a great old London feel.

Blissfully authentic pub. We were the only ones without a british accent. Had an outrageously memorable conversation with a couple of salty locals. So worth it!

Now I know how J k Rowling got her ideas for all those crazy streets in Harry Potter… aka Diagon alley.
The red lion is a small small pub down a funky alley with all kinds of other shops. The bar keep was nice and the pub was frequented by a mixture of brits and americans alike. The beer selection is okay.
I would not go out of my way to drink here unless you are very close by.

Monopoly Pub Crawl — Stop #13 — Pall Mall (Pink)
Ah Pall Mall! I still to this day do not know how to correctly pronounce this name but I give it the old Oxford try each time. For this stop, we picked the Red Lion pub to stop and have a wee drink.
This is a proper old man boozer and is rumoured to be one of the oldest pubs in London. Given how many pubs claim the title of oldest, it’s hard to tell which came first but the Red Lion has the right name and the right feel to be a solid challenger. Add to that the modesty of claiming to be the 2^nd oldest, and I’m willing to give it to them.
They have a pretty decent selection of ales here that are a bit different from your standard ‘Spoons or Taylor Walker. The barman was friendly enough to our group despite the fact we had tripled in size by absorbing other groups (everyone wants to drink with Unilocalers). We pretty much packed the place out as it’s a small pub so keep in mind if leading a group around.
I confess I don’t remember much more about this place as we were in and out in about 10 minutes but it was warm and inviting as all good pubs should be!

Wow, we very nearly couldn’t find the place. Due to the angle of our approach up Marlborough Drive, we didn’t see anything. Walk past Crown Passage and back, only to hear the noise and see the crowd. There it is!
Very small pub with a few tables inside (very crowded) and a triple dozen of people standing outside, some smoking and some not. I didn’t see any real ales on offer, so we ended up with two pints of boring Strongbow before moving on to another pub.
Probably a great place for an after-​work pint before heading home. Green Park tube is not far away.

Afer a day of sightseeing my wife and I stopped at this small, cosy pub for a relaxing drink last Saturday in the late afternoon, at about 4.30 pm. We were having a most enjoyable long weekend break in London.
My reason for going to this particular pub was that it’s very favourably reviewed on the TimeOut website. I was impressed with the charming old world atmosphere and general ambience. Moreover, the staff serving at the smallish bar were courteous and ‘not unfriendly’.
When I lived in London in the seventies, I would never have described «Johnathan Ross type» Cockney Londoners as courteous or friendly. Most of them were **. So full marks for the Poles, Aussies, Scots, Geordies, Paddies and even the Frenchies for making London pubs better than they ever were.
My wife enjoyed her half pint of Fosters lager and I enjoyed a pint of draught Tribute bitter. I didn’t notice any other real ales. The bill came to about £5.10, which is par for the course in this area of London. Based on our short visit, I’m not sure if it deserves a «high» 3-​star rating or the 4 stars I’ve given it. We didn’t sample the food, but this is the type of pub where I instinctively feel like staying for another beer. It was as good as the first!
My wife thought the stairs up to the ladies toilet and first floor fuction/​lounge room would be dangerous if one were a wee bit tipsy.
I will definitely go back to this pub the next time I’m in this area and feel like having a relaxing beer or two. On this occasion TimeOut seem to have got their review right, but I would not go as far as giving the pub a full five stars.

Very nice little pub with an excellent real ale offering. The bar was full of a group of undertakers and Carlton Club members on my visit. Very convenient after an afternoon spent in Fortnum and Masons.

There are 100s if not 1000s of back street pubs tucked away in London and surviving on nothing more than Friday night trade and a loyal clientele.
If you’re on the tourist trail and have yet to visit a traditional pub, this one is close to St James and Pall Mall, but far enough of the beaten track to feel like a local.

Reputed to be the second oldest pub in London, this is a fantastic, friendly and traditional pub near Green Park

Fabulous and friendly pub reputed to be London’s second oldest.

A small but attractive and very busy local tucked away just off Pall Mall, with many original Victorian fittings, and what claims to be one of the oldest licences in the area.
Crown Passage is a wide alleyway with something of a feel of ‘olde London’ — or as much as it can muster, given the number of expensive and trendy eateries along its short length.
But the Red Lion, at least, is very traditional, from the pilastered brick frontage to the hanging baskets above lead-​light windows. Look out for three original gas-​lamp brackets, now painted red (below awkward electric replacements). A grade-​II listed building possibly dating back to Georgian times, the cosy interior has extensive oak panelling — and beware, it is very cosy and gets very crowded indeed. Upstairs there’s a larger function room, also used as an overspill when they’re busy.
The pub has a sign claiming it to be ‘London’s last village pub’ and, while that might be pushing the hype a little too much, it does have something of the feel of a country local, except for the accents: a mixture of well spoken executives and foreign tourists. But it’s still miles better than many of the alternatives in central London.
Beers include Adnams Bitter and St Austell Tribute, so real-​ale fans are well catered for. They also serve food, although getting a table can be a bit of an Anneka Rice challenge

Oooh, this is a sneaky little place. And one of the best little hidey holes in Mayfair. There are some great pubs in this areas, but the Red Lion still seems to have space to breathe — even on a Friday evening.
It’s got a pretty old crowd, but that’s no bad thing if you just fancy a quiet drink. I came here with my friend and his dad and we all had a great time. I remember only planning on staying for a quick drink and ended up drinking a few more glasses of red than I was planning. To me, that’s the sign of a good pub. (Or the sign of me having no self control let’s not go there.)
My love for this pub may be linked to my love of sneaky little passageways in London. If I can help it, I won’t walk down a main road. But all in all, for a quiet pub in Mayfair that isn’t wonderfully overpriced, you could do a lot worse.

When you head down crown passage you feel that you are being transported back to Dickensian times with the cobbled narrow streets and buildings that overhang the walkway, it is appropriate that the Red Lion is located here as it is supposedly the second oldest pub in the capital. This is a traditional boozer with a small bar area downstairs, upstairs there is a large room which resembles your grandparents living room in its décor and its warmth. This is the perfect place to meet up if you want to have a good chat and not be distracted. In the summer drinkers spill on to the street outside. I would imagine that there are a lot of locals here and this place is probably one of the most traditional pubs left in London which makes it a real find.