It was only when the lengthy Vittles Mag pub list came out last year that I found out about this pub. I felt like I'd been deceived, years working around this area, countless events on Brick Lane and in Shoreditch, and yet I'd never come across it for pre-drinks or a destination boozer. Jimmy Mac wrote an excellent piece recently on the gate-keeping of pubs, I wonder if this is one of them, a sort of unwritten rule for this pub in particular, given the propensity for any pub in the area to be covered in a sea of blue business shirts and smart casual spilling out into the streets. Although the correlation between that and £7.50 Neck Oil being served is near perfect, so perhaps this one dodges that crowd. I'm sure some manage to find their way in after work is done. It feels special when you walk into it, the phrase "stepping back in time" gets thrown about a bit but here, it does. The front room is essentially the main room, sweeping plush seating coating the edges of the place, the covers matching the curtains matching the carpets. A burgundy warmth swallows you up as you choose where to plonk yourself down. I grabbed a pint of Five Points pale on cask for under a fiver and occupied a corner. The side room is cosier, but arguably less comfortable, with wooden chairs and tables bunched together. This is typically where the tourists off Brick Lane stumble into, the main room still has that locally imposing factor to it. You're welcome there, it's friendly as ever, but if this is one of your first experiences of a London pub after chasing down bagels and graffiti then looks and the huge groups of blokes sinking beers might set the tone before you've had a chance to figure it out for yourself. In the evening, apparently the piano gets "given a good workout", it's much busier and you have to take advantage of the multiple perching spots distributed around the pub. I'll have to come back at a later time, on a weekday, when the trains are running properly, and soak in one of the last remaining pub-pubs in the area.