The Peasant Restaurant & Bar

London is awash with gastro-pubs but Clerkenwell's The Peasant was one of the early pioneers. Unusually for the genre, it stills feels like a boozer with good food, rather than a restaurant with beer fonts.

We have the brothers Gregory and Patrick Wright to thank for funkifying and gastrofying this sprawling old neighbourhood boozer. It was once the George & Dragon, as is obvious from the interior, where a tiled fresco depicts the saint slaying the monster. Other original features, including a mosaic floor and a very solid looking mahogany Victorian horseshoe bar which combine well with warehouse-style lighting and plain red walls under an extraordinary high, partly original plaster ceiling. Seating is of the functional oaken kind with bare wood tables.

A la carte dining is offered upstairs in the restaurant and British and Mediterranean influenced menu also features heavily in the downstairs pub. The drinks list includes a surprising array of cocktails and three cask ales with regularly changing guest beers.

The folk of Clerkenwell are lucky to have such a local on their doorstep.