The Fox and Anchor
The Fox and Anchor review: the market-workers' pub next to Smithfield still does the best full English in London. Open early, pewter tankards, proper pub.
The Fox and Anchor is a grade-II listed pub on Charterhouse Street, five minutes from Farringdon station. It opens at seven in the morning because the Smithfield porters needed a drink at the end of a shift.
The room
A long wooden bar, dark green tiles, etched glass, a series of private snugs.
What to order
The City Boy breakfast at eight in the morning: two sausages, bacon, black pudding, fried egg, tomato, mushrooms, beans, fried bread. With it, a pewter tankard of Guinness.
The drinks list
Cask ales on hand pump, a small wine list, Guinness the way it ought to be.
What you will pay
Breakfast and a half: £22. A full lunch: £35.
The verdict
Go at 07:30. Order the pewter pint.
Nathaniel Ashford
Senior contributing editor
Nathaniel Ashford writes about bars, cocktails, pubs and the London neighbourhoods that hold them together. A former drinks-trade journalist, he now contributes a weekly cocktail column for Vivi and leads the Vivi Neighbourhoods series.
He knows more about vermouth than is strictly respectable. Based in Fitzrovia; generally found two doors down from wherever he is supposed to be.
Near this restaurant
St JOHN
Fergus Henderson's Smithfield institution is still the benchmark for British cooking in London. Bone marrow on toast, a ...
Bar Gemella
A small Italian wine bar on Lexington Street that takes walk-ins until nine. Three marble tables, a short list, and a cl...
Brat
Tomos Parry's wood-fire restaurant on Redchurch Street is the most exciting dinner in East London. It has been, for most...