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VERSION:2.1
N:White Swan and Cuckoo
FN:White Swan and Cuckoo
TEL;WORK;VOICE:020 7488 9158
ADR;WORK:;;97 Wapping Lane;E1W 2RW
URL:
NOTE:All you have to do is step a few yards north of Wapping High Street's luxury apartment strip and you find yourself in a wholly different world, one deserted forever by planners and architects after they finished laying the mid-50s, mid-rise monstrosities that bestow all the elegance on the area of a herd of farting bison. The casual Thames Path-walker - or Luxury Apartment-seeking Estate Agent-botherer -  will probably get no further, but for the pub-hungry it is worth wandering a few hundred yards into Architectural Hell. The White Swan and Cuckoo appears to be a 19th century building on a quiet street, mouldering greyly at the front, with curtains covering all the windows and fluorescent stars advertising the cheapness of various brews within. I've always found curtained pubs to be a bit hit and miss; you really don't know upon entering whether you're going to be greeted by two old men and a dog, a pack of psychotic local yoof smoking crack and playing snooker with a Kalashnikov, or the greatest pub in the known universe. In this case, it happened to be the latter. Unmessed with pub decor in reds and dark wood festered beautifully under appealingly dim lighting, with a large and lively crowd divided between watching the football in one section of the 'L'-shaped saloon, and talking in the other. People made way for us to sit down and we soon got caught up in the cheerful banter, watching all the while as the crowd ebbed and flowed around us. It's no great shakes in the beer department, but was so convivial and friendly that I couldn't have cared less, taking in people of all races and lifestyles (although, tellingly, not any from the luxury apartments at the bottom of the road) as well as children, pensioners and everything in between. The football coverage was businesslike (no dabbling with half-time coverage or the dreaded post-match analysis) and the minute it was over up went the big screen and everyone got back to talking. It does food, meaning there is absolutely no excuse for leaving, and was about as life-affirming as things get on a day when Michael Howard made a speech, my football team lost, England's batting order collapsed and a dozen more people died in Iraq. Come here; be happy.
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