Kings Cross pubs

John Betjeman, one of Britain's most famous and best loved poets, campaigned for St Pancras station to be saved. He died in 1984 and never saw the magnificent results of the station's restoration. A small and understated bronze statue of the man gazes up from the concourse at the steel arched roof in silent wonder. The ultimate tribute is the station's pub which they also named after him. Rather like the station, the pub is high-ceilinged and has a rather grand feel to it. The main bar area sprawls from an entrance at the front of the station and has seating out on the station concourse where you can watch the comings and goings of the Eurostar trains. The choice of beers is enough to keep most people happy with 3 draught ales on offer. The pub serves (reputedly very good) gastro fayre in the more intimate surroundings of an adjoining dining room. By far the best pub in any railway station anywhere. Just been relaunched, the following is information from the owners

Super-sized and super-cool, The Big Chill House is a listed building in London's King's Cross that has been converted into a space where you can celebrate The Big Chill festival spirit, all year round. It dispenses all the expected beers and spirits, as well as good-value cocktail list. Homemade burgers are BCH's strong suit, with half-a-dozen to choose from, as well as a stack of extra toppings and cheeses, but also serves a delicious breakfast menu.

The music policy is diverse, representing all aspects you'd associate with the Big Chill festival wrapped up in a forward-thinking style you'd expect from one of London's leading music venues. Each week sees a selection of block-rocking DJs hand-picked by our programming team for their ability to deliver nothing but good vibes on the dance floor.

Whatever your choice is... a freshly roasted coffee and free wifi in the cafe area, a cool drink in the sunny terrace, a late night buggy on the dance floor.

Opening Times
Monday - Thursday 8am 'til Midnight
Friday 8am 'til 2am
Saturday 11am 'til 2am
Sunday 11am 'til Midnight

Food Served
Weekdays
Breakfast 8am - 11.30am
Lunch 12pm - 3.30pm
Dinner 5.30pm - 11pm
Weekends
Breakfast 11am - 4pm
Lunch 12pm - 4pm
Dinner 4.30pm - 10pm

DJs Thursday to Saturday from 8pm plus monthly special events Sadly, the surreal spectacle that was Sahara Nights is no more. In its place is the Big Chill House, a venue devoted to jazz, reggae, global sounds and a nice warm red colour daubed liberally over everything. So far, so good, but as usual the abstract idea is rather wrecked by the rampaging drunken hordes that descend on the place, who seem to consist of all of the people I attempt to spend my life avoiding. It becomes so rammed of a Friday/Saturday night that there's a one in, one out policy, bouncers on the door, a giant queue acting under the impression it's in Rotherham town centre, and a mob of lunatics inside heaving back and forth like a Walrus stuck in mud. If you must attend, make sure you do it in the mellowness of a Saturday afternoon. The tacky name, combined with possibly the worst location in Western Europe (just near the Thameslink station at King's Cross, amidst the pimps, ticket touts and drugs dealers - mmmmm nice!) is enough to put anyone off. I was actually looking for another pub in the vicinity when I stumbled across this, and even though I was slavering for a pint I still had to be pushed in. From the outside, even discounting the awful name, this place has a dubious veneer, like one of those awful Essex nightclubs that serve Alcopops on tap to fifteen-year-old lunatics and flat lager to strange men in overcoats. Huge windowless double doors and garish red paint hardly shout 'welcome' to the thirsty traveller, and I was expecting some seedy haven for ageing cons and off-duty prostitutes. I was, not for the first time, completely wrong. Decked out in, er, mock-Saharan sheets and hangings, with the bar top having interesting tiny lights and bits of swirly coloured stuff embedded within it (sort of like the Bedouin meet 'Blade Runner') the interior would have made Colonel Gaddafy's tent-maker go green with envy. There is an eating area (and decent food), a dark alcove-y type arrangement, and, behind a curtain at the back, lots of secretaries belly dancing. This is not a sight often seen in pubs, and now I can understand why. Once I had got over the rather surreal nature of what I was watching, the spectacle became firstly compelling and then simply terrifying, as mounds of pasty and overfed flesh heaved in a bad simulcrum of lasciviousness. It had several grown men fleeing for the comfort of the main bar. There is also a roof terrace, from which you can gaze down on the glories of King's Cross and choke on the traffic fumes. This is certainly one of the weirdest pubs I've been to in a long time, and more than that, I actually like it. It has a mixed clientele, nice staff and a host of odd places to sit back and ponder the world. Just stay the right side of the curtain... Not reviewed yet.

Want to review it? Old-style boozer maintaining the traditional schizophrenic split between bars, with no real way to get from one to the other save by leaving the pub or taking a shortcut by the toilets. Rubbish selection of real ales is off-set by an intimate, good-natured atmosphere and a complete failure to address the modern needs of style, sophistication and all that nonsense. Impressively down-at-heel, with a range of large tables and ageing but comfy seats, it serves Thai food and seems to have a long list of regulars. This area, a stone’s throw from Kings Cross, is being gentrified at breakneck speed. In keeping with this trend, this particular pub is undergoing a refit to make it more attractive to the new arrivals. You know the ones: twenty and thirty something young professionals – an ad man’s dream. So far it seems to be succeeding and there is plenty to cheer about: great food and friendly staff. The beer selection, with London Pride and TT Landlord could be larger, but hey this is the new Kings Cross and most of the punters probably don’t care anyway. We didn’t care either on our visit after having spent the day navigating London’s canal network. It provided everything we needed. There is nothing remarkable about this place other than it's on platform 8 of the London terminus for trains from such exotic and diverse places like Leeds or Aberdeen. There is a broad cross section of British life in here from travelling businessmen to Vicky Pollard style chavettes. The staff here are great given the amount of stick they invariably have to put up after Newcastle United have played Arsenal and the trains are delayed. One wonders what it would take to erase their undying enthusiasm. Having a drink here is rather like being in a goldfish bowl as everybody walking up the platform outside seems to be gawping in. Are they envious that we are all drinking while they rush to catch the 17:21? It seems these people are not the only ones magically drawn to the pub window. Dirty old men cast lascivious eyes and "phwoars" at the female talent walking up the platform. Away from the window, black and white photographs of 20th century Dukes of York on the walls are just about visible through the choking tobacco fumes. No sign of "Air Miles" Andy though, however we should not be surprised as he would rather charter a private jet than deign to catch a train. Every so often my curiosity gets the better of me and do something stupid, like going to this rather infamous pub. From the outside it looks like the aftermath of a roadside bomb in Baghdad. There is no proper pub sign and a hastily written chalk board advertises that this is a pub. I push the unmarked door and I’m in. After the several bewildering seconds it takes for my eyes to adjust to the darkness I realise I am indeed standing at a bar. I buy a pint of the only drinkable substance, Guinness, and push on further into the abyss. I round the corner of the bar and enter a room containing a collection of men with an abundance of facial hair who are mostly wearing macs. The men gaze slack-jawed at the stage while a procession of desperate young women gyrate on stage with all the finesse of C3PO rubbing in haemorrhoid cream. This goes on either until the punters get bored with putting the £1 coins or they suddenly disappear into the gents. The toilets, painted jet black, resemble a gothic torture chamber but without the rack and fetters and are not a place where you would want to dwell for any longer than necessary. A sense of doom hangs over the place like a pall of black smoke and I get the feeling that the place will be bulldozed as a part of the ongoing gentrification of Kings Cross, probably to make way for another Peppermint Elephant. Bills itself as a ‘contemporary pub’, and tries to live up to that tag. Stylishly decorated, with a large open interior, plenty of tables, a stage, and a glitterball. A good selection of beers and food are served by friendly staff. Shirley Bassey singing in Portuguese, plus a collection of stick-thin, uber-fashionista males soon alerted me to the fact that ‘contemporary’ seemed to be slang for ‘gay’. Late nights Friday and Saturday. Big wooden room of a pub with some fancy lagers and nice chips. I usually steer clear of pubs in railway stations. I find the naff decor and transient clientele rather off putting. I have made an exception here because (i) its actually just outside Euston Station; and (ii) I heard the beer was good. After negotiating a series of bus lanes to the front of the station the pub looms into view like a post apocalypse Soviet tenament block. The pub itself is reached via stairs to the first floor. The walls inside are adorned with a dazzling array of old railway signs looted from Britain's railways over the years. As you might expect, the clientele represent a broad cross section of London life. Students and office workers sit cheek by jowl with weary travellers and train spotters. I chatted to a Scotsman who was getting "pished" before boarding the night sleeper to Edinburgh. The beer, as I was rightly informed, is good. It was worth coming here just to sample the many unusual ales on offer. A visit to this pub is not complete, however, until you try and go to the loo. Try being the operative word. Be sure to go to the basement toilets via the bar so that you can ask for the pass code on the way down. Our advice is to go to the loo before your bladder feels like an over inflated football. Ideal for lazy afternoons with a newspaper and a pint. This small traditional pub hidden in the back streets behind Kings Cross is worth seeking out. Grab a pint of hallucinogenic Brodies Porter (a skull-splitting 7.8% no less) and admire the dark wood-panelled walls adorned with hunting trophies and other weird paraphenalia or just play bar billiards. In the evenings, a younger and mostly good-natured crowd descends and an assortment of 80s and 90s classics are played at high volume. There are some tables out on the pavement for those wishing to smoke or have a quiet conversation. The only downside is the tiny gents toilet. It has just one cubicle and a urinal so small that it can only fit one bloke at a time, but this is a minor point in an otherwise good pub. The large boasts of a "beer patio" lead to a risible reality: a cramped dingy patch of concrete out to one side of the pub. The inside is better: a decent amount of space in a traditional-ish setting, easy on the decor, with plenty of room to admire all the cars zooming pointlessly towards or away from King's Cross. Does food, has an okay selection of beers, and burgeons towards the crowded when there's football on TV. Like the rest of the area, this pub has hauled itself up by the bootstraps in recent years, in this case with beneficial results. McGlynn’s, 1-5 Whidborne St, Kings Cross, London, WC1H 8ET – Kings Cross Set back in the little warren of streets just south of St Pancras station, McGlynn’s should always have attracted me but, during the era of fake Irish pubs, the name rather put me off. Now that chain Irish pubs have gone the way of MPs claiming expenses for duck islands, it’s time to survey the wreckage. McGlynn’s always looked small from the outside, although it in fact is rather cavernous within, even boasting some kind of dining room at the far side of the bar. In terms of presentation it’s no great shakes, but neither is there any ill-advised sentimentality or trip down fake-memory lane; this not being an Irish pub with added designer Irishness, but a proper pub owned and run by an Irish landlord. There’s a couple of real ales, all the other standard booze, a big screen for the football and that’s pretty much yer lot – just like the regulars want it. Cheerful and straightforward, it makes for a good option should the Lord John Russell be far too crowded. McGlynn’s has survived the Irish chain pub purge, and rightfully so. Boasting of being ‘Under new management’ can be a bit of a double-edged sword, and in this particular case I suspect the previous managers just weren’t hard enough to suit the clientele. It’s a spit and sawdust pub, lacking only the, er, spit and the sawdust, but selling all the standard drinks very cheaply to a mixture of shaven-headed Englishmen who look like they’ve swallowed a whale and giant-muscled Poles who rather resemble He-Man on steroids. Pool table, Sky Sports and new managers made out of titanium.

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