If you have been to the Pelican, you will know why the Hero is the pub everyone will soon be talking about and drinking in. If you haven’t, allow me to explain. When the owners Phil Winser and James Gummer reopened the Pelican in Notting Hill in 2022, it was one of the first modern public houses that was more than just a boozer. They transformed it into a brilliant pub, full of glorious light with a lively vibe and a cosy dining room that served fantastic British food (think monkfish scampi or a head of brill, deep-fried), and whose regulars now include Dua Lipa and Princess Eugenie.
Fast-forward to today and the hottest reservation you can have is in the restaurant above a boozer where food is cooked in plain sight over a huge, fiery grill. Over the past few years acclaimed pubs with restaurants, such as the Parakeet in Kentish Town, the Plimsoll, Finsbury Park, and the Three Horseshoes in Batcombe, Somerset, have opened their doors. The most famous example is the Devonshire in Soho, run by the Irish landlord extraordinaire Oisin Rogers. It sold 19,000 pints of Guinness in the week before Christmas and tables for dinner sell out in seconds.
“We were one of the earliest people to do that with the Pelican. It was us testing the water about what we think a good pub should be,” Winser says on a May afternoon at the 146-year-old Hero in Maida Vale, which, even though it only opened its doors a few days ago, is already becoming the hottest new pub in the city. “You go to France and they have their brasseries. You go to Italy and they have their trattorias. You come to the UK and we have our pubs. It’s a unique part of our identity that has been built out of our culture and history and they serve a real purpose. But they had become disjointed.”
In addition to the Pelican, in 2023 the duo — along with the businessman Olivier van Themsche, who is also involved in the Hero — opened the Bull, a bubbling Cotswolds pub in the “kissy-kissy, darling” town of Charlbury, Oxfordshire. This is where west London migrates to at weekends, and where Giles Coren, the Times food critic, said he had the best pie and pint of his life. Carrie Johnson reportedly spent New Year there. Jeremy Clarkson is a regular, and apparently the Beckhams have visited, smuggled in through the back door.
• Giles Coren reviews The Bull in Oxfordshire
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The Hero is about a 25-minute walk — or 7-minute Uber ride — from the Pelican, sandwiched between a café and an electrical shop. Each of the site’s three floors is a showcase of what is great about modern public houses. On the ground floor is the pub and the beating heart of the building, which serves pints and nostalgic bar snacks as well as British classics that make you go “wow” (brilliant food is part of the DNA here). On the pans is the chef Ed Baillieu, who brings us a ridiculously good Ogleshield, Cheddar and red Leicester cheese toastie with pickle, a Scotch egg and a ham, egg and chips with a heavenly honey, mustard and parsley sauce, followed by four desserts including a devilishly good sticky toffee pudding and a lemon tart that, I am told by a member of staff, Nick Jones of Soho House said is the best he’s had. And then there are the pies — from cheese and onion to shepherd’s pie — the dish the pub group has accidentally become famous for.
Up on the first floor is the Grill, which opens in the beginning of July. It’s the Hero’s white tablecloth, sit-down-dinner restaurant, with a private dining room next door, and is a beautiful room with washed walls, wooden floorboards, original mouldings, fireplaces and brown leather booths. Winser tells me how they made a point of stripping back all modern additions and holding back on any paint. “We wanted to pay homage to the beautiful details so that the features can shine through.”
I want to know how they will manage the booking system. Right now among foodies, bragging about the reservations you have secured has become a relevant, albeit jarring, form of social clout and smuggery. For example, imagine not having had dinner at the Devonshire, and therefore not being able to fill your Instagram and TikTok with pictures of its langoustines and pints of Guinness? What a cruel, cruel world that would be. What on earth would you say when you answered the question “Best pub in London?” in your imaginary episode of TopJaw — the cult Instagram series in which the host, Jesse Burgess, quizzes London chefs and celebrities on their favourite restaurants. Brew Dog? Please, have some self-respect.
Diners at the Hero won’t be in a similar pickle. Gummer tells me they will always keep tables back for walk-ins. “If you want to be a local pub and an asset in the community, letting yourself fall into a trap where you’re booked out really far in advance makes that tricky for those who aren’t around to refresh their booking page every five minutes.”
Up again, on the second floor is the Library, a very chic, very sexy cocktail bar that feels more like your cool friend’s living room, complete with a record player. Martinis will be the drink to get here.
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Not everyone has taken to the pub group’s popularity. Last year Kensington and Chelsea council imposed a wave of restrictions on the Pelican after a local group complained that the pub — and its customers — were becoming a public nuisance.
“The first thing we do when we go into a neighbourhood is listen to a community and hear what they want,” Gummer says. “Pubs are such cornerstones and prominent buildings. What we’re trying to do with this space and the rest of the floors is offer that much more. Come in for a casual pint, or hire out the space upstairs for a birthday, or book in for a Friday night dinner.”
Back downstairs in the pub, it’s just past lunch. A whole spectrum of characters are streaming in or poking their head around the door — families, trendy couples and locals. “This pub has had lots of iterations,” Gummer adds. “It’s had lots of ups and downs over the years. What we’ve noticed is just how excited people are to have their pub back.” The best things, it would seem, really do come in threes.
