The Eagle
By now, the word gastropub is so widespread that the term is virtually meaningless, but foodies note: That trend began here in 1991 (or so most agree), in an old pub in Clerkenwell, a then-ungentrified area between Bloomsbury and Islington. So old are this place’s roots that it actually makes a cameo in the nursery rhyme “Pop Goes the Weasel”: “Up and down the City Road/In and out of the Eagle/That’s the way the money goes/Pop goes the weasel.” You’ll be happy for your money to go this way. Behind the bar of a bare-to-the-wood corner saloon, rebuilt in 1901, the sometimes-surly staff prepares a changing selection of about a dozen flavorful dishes a day, from the likes of pork loin salad to pan-roasted sole to the house specialty, the insidiously spicy Bife Ana steak sandwich dripping with marinated garlic and onion. Tables are shared (it’s bad for groups), menu by blackboard only (sometimes it’s posted on Instagram: @eaglefarringdon), furniture reassuringly shabby and mismatched. Order at the bar and relax with a beer, because here, the food’s the thing, and it arrives on its own schedule, not much pomp about it.
By now, the word gastropub is so widespread that the term is virtually meaningless, but foodies note: That trend began here in 1991 (or so most agree), in an old pub in Clerkenwell, a then-ungentrified area between Bloomsbury and Islington. So old are this place’s roots that it actually makes a cameo in the nursery rhyme “Pop Goes the Weasel”: “Up and down the City Road/In and out of the Eagle/That’s the way the money goes/Pop goes the weasel.” You’ll be happy for your money to go this way. Behind the bar of a bare-to-the-wood corner saloon, rebuilt in 1901, the sometimes-surly staff prepares a changing selection of about a dozen flavorful dishes a day, from the likes of pork loin salad to pan-roasted sole to the house specialty, the insidiously spicy Bife Ana steak sandwich dripping with marinated garlic and onion. Tables are shared (it’s bad for groups), menu by blackboard only (sometimes it’s posted on Instagram: @eaglefarringdon), furniture reassuringly shabby and mismatched. Order at the bar and relax with a beer, because here, the food’s the thing, and it arrives on its own schedule, not much pomp about it.
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