96 Ladbroke Grove,
Notting Hill,
London,
W11 1PY
0872 148 0255
The ViewLondon Review
Situated on Ladbroke Grove, an area of London that seemingly cannot be tamed by gentrification, the Elgin is a fine looking pub that seems to be doing a fine job of appealing to an amazingly diverse community.
It’s part of the Firkin chain, purveyors of pubs with annoying alliterative names like “The Fleapit and Firkin”. However, there are no beers with stupid names, badly-drawn chalk murals or beardy weirdy barmen.
The Elgin is painted a rather fetching dark green, and is one of the smartest looking pubs I’ve encountered for a while. There was plenty of seating outside the door, but I quickly decided that alcohol and bright sunlight was not a combination I wanted to start my afternoon off with.
The interior was vast, although the bar in the middle slightly disguised this fact. The beer selection was very good, with a number of decent bitters (including the fine Bombardier) and a number of excellent German and Belgian varieties on draught too.
The interior decoration is similarly smart – cream walls with the mouldings and skirting boards decorated in darker colours. Much of the original fittings are still in place, so expect to see fine Victorian mirrors surrounded by decorative tiles.
The clientele on a Wednesday was as diverse as you could imagine. Tables of American tourists, Australian travellers, local rastas and office workers enjoying a lunchtime pint and a book were all seated within a short radius of each other.
There was music playing, but it wasn’t too intrusive, and the high ceilings meant that the interior was cool and remarkable smoke free. All in all the Elgin was a pretty nice place to while away a couple of hours. Thumbs up…