Bag O' Nails

Better here than the Shakespeare!!

Not a bad pub by all accounts. Quite small, but traditionally arranged with an interesting demographic of clients....and they sell Laphroaig which is always a plus!!!!

If you want to find somewhere convenient with plenty of seating for its size that isn't too pricey around Victoria you cant go far wrong with this gem!

Not a bad pub near Victoria - owned by T & J Bernard, it has a good choice of real ales, but is a little compromised by being sooo close to Buckingham Palace and Victoria station (ie often packed of tourists and at lunch and after work) and by the thunderous traffic of Grosvenor Place.

The pub has an interesting history, though: mentioned in 1775 as the Bacchanals, the pub sign featured a satyr in the woods surrounded by jolly dogs - the 'Bacchanals’ of the title. The satyr was painted black, and many locals regarded it as the devil, such that the pub was still known as the 'Devil and Bacchanals’ as late as 1905, when the name was transliterated into the more homely 'Bag o’ Nails’.

Both inside and out, it has the feel of a traditional pub, although most of the dark wood furniture is rather new. The beers on my visit included Greene King IPA, Fuller’s London Pride, Young’s Special, Old Speckled Hen, Wadworth’s 6X, and Courage Directors. So nothing way out of the ordinary, but finding six real ales around Victoria is always a plus.

One slight downer is that the beers were served with rather generous heads, and we had to ask to have them topped up. They did so willingly enough, though I suspect an unknowing tourist might just have accepted it.

They do a fairly standard range of pub grub: starters from £3.70-£4.30, mains £6.95-£10 and puds at a decent £2.95 to £3.70. They also do a range of 'sharing meals’ (nachos - that kind of thing), sandwiches and jacket potatoes.

There’s also a large Sports TV screen in what is actually quite a small venue - it can get uncomfortably noisy for my taste when there’s a match on. The other downer on my visit was the Gent’s toilet: decently refurbished, but a bit messy and smelly (someone had clearly had a fight with the loo roll and lost).

Overall, not a bad venue if you can drop in when it’s a bit quieter.

Good pub quite near to Victoria train station. Usually good service, not having to wait too long at the bar before getting served. Food is home cooked and reasonably priced. Can get busy on Friday nights due to proximity to train station and tourists visiting nearby Buckingham Palace.