19 Carlisle Street,
Mayfair,
London,
W1D 3BY
0872 148 1946
The ViewLondon Review
If I use the word 'Irish in describing this bar, do not despair. I know there are more Irish pubs outside Ireland than in it; I know the jigs make your ears hurt; I know they're as convincing as a plastic moustache.
The Toucan is not an 'Irish Bar'. It's a bar that's Irish. The difference is that here, there are as many Irishmen in front of the bar as behind it.
Why? Because more Guinness is peddled here than in any bar in London, and in one memorable day a pint was sold every 4.5 seconds. Guinness, not Irishness, is the 'theme' of the place – which is why the Irish love it (they also do a passing fine whiskey selection …Ed).
Thespians are devotees of the Toucan too - Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris were regulars in their time. Is it the plentiful supply of Guinness and rare Irish whiskies that lures them? The Irish rugby they screen?
More likely, they're drawn to the salubrious squalor. Go downstairs and it's like entering an inn of the Romantic era – murky, tiny, intimate, and with that suggestion of illicit skulduggery that brings on a thirst for dark ale.
Look closer, and you'll find evidence of a modern age: postcards and photographs, beer mats and napkins, menus for bar snacks. But there are Rossmore oysters on that menu, and at the top of it: 'GUINNESS goes so well with food.' Just what Delia Smith's always saying.
There are also Toucans a-plenty – carved, standing sentry on the bar, and on the walls. Both downstairs and on the ground floor, where a few barstools jostle with kegs of Harp for space, orange walls are punctuated with flying toucans large and small.
The toucans, if you need to be told, are in honour of the 1940s Guinness 'what Toucan do' campaign. But if you're a bona fide Irish punter looking for a bona fide Irish hangout like this, you'll already know that. Hell, you're probably already here.
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