The Eagle

Welcome to The Eagle Farringdon – the background, the food and drink, the people behind it, how to find it, how to cook the food yourself and most important of all, how to get a table!

The Eagle Farringdon, The Eagle Pub, Pub in Farringdon, Eagle Pub

The background, the food and drink, the people behind it, how to find it and how to cook the food yourself… and most important of all, how to get a table!

Mismatched tables and chairs, punters, young and old.

World music and jazz, good food, wine and beer… The Eagle Farringdon; it's what a pub should be.

http://www.theeaglefarringdon.co.uk

Reviews and related sites

The Eagle: Britain's first gastropub celebrates its 25th birthday | The ...

Review analysis
food   drinks   staff  

The term itself might be contentious – gastropubs have not graced The Good Food Guide’s pages since 2011, although the industry mouthpiece, The Publican’s Morning Advertiser, holds its annual celebration of the top 50 gastropubs later this month – but the concept is as familiar as some of the overused conceits to describe the grub.

Before Michael Belben and David Eyre acquired the lease on the corner property on Farringdon Road in late 1990, central London pubs were not places anyone sober would seek out sustenance.

Although Rochelle Venables, the editor of The Good Food Guide, reckons the term fails to “convey the flexible approach to hospitality that pubs have traditionally offered to diners and drinks [becoming] synonymous with restaurant ambitions”, gastropubs live on for Campion because they dish up the goods.

“Chefs have told me that customers can tire of the term when a pub names itself a gastropub because they serve a burger with a bit of bacon in it or ‘posh pork scratchings’.

But true gastropubs are more than that, and I think the public knows that too,” says Nicholas Robinson, the food editor at The Publican’s Morning Advertiser.

The Eagle, Britain's first gastropub, turns 25

It’s lunchtime at The Eagle in Farringdon, London.

The place smells of warm olive oil and the atmosphere is so energetic it’s hard to believe that this boozer near Smithfield Market is now the grand-daddy of dining pubs – 25-years-old this week.

There were already some notable food-oriented pubs outside London (such as The Angel, in Hetton, North Yorkshire) but it was The Eagle - with its vibrant cooking, blackboard menu and mismatched furniture - that spawned the gastropub revolution.

The Eagle | Hippo Inns pub in Ladbroke Grove, West London

It’s that time of the year to watch the mighty 6 nations rugby teams go head to head.

We’ll be showing the Natwest 6 Nations rugby throughout February and March, so get in touch early to grab a the best seat in the house Book a table for 4+ to dine and get a jug of Truman’s beer on us!

The Eagle | Geronimo Inn pub located in Shepherd's Bush London

There are some wonderful pubs in Ravenscourt Park, and the Eagle nests very well alongside them.

Buzzed along by the eclectic music, the quiz, the Eagle’s offerings of real ale, modern wines and fresh seasonal British food has created a firm favourite amongst those wanting to eat in Shepherd’s Bush.

Twenty-five years of the gastropub – a revolution that saved British ...

Review analysis
food   drinks   staff   menu  

It was also, quietly, a gender revolution: food before Trish Hilferty – the chef at the Eagle, who went on to the Anchor & Hope and then the Canton Arms, for my money, the best pub in London – had the demonic sexism of today’s tech industry.

The emphasis on seasons, food miles, foraging, inventiveness through nature rather than fuss through a piping bag, came from places such as the Sportsman in Seasalter, Kent, and the idyllic Star Inn in Harome, North Yorkshire (both in the nation’s top 10 gastropubs, below, as denominated by the Publican’s Morning Advertiser this week).

Yet the food has changed everything: when the Canton first opened (itself a late arrival, though from a long-standing stable), I used to go with the dog so that I could, without waste, have a foie gras toastie as a pre-starter, followed by a starter, followed by a main course, hoovering up lupin seeds for 60p along the way.

Chef Brett Graham, of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants contender the Ledbury, has the distinction of co-owning London’s only Michelin-starred pub.

When Emily Watkins isn’t popping up on BBC2’s Great British Menu, she is putting the experience gained from Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck to good use in running her own pub.

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