The Pig's Ear, Chelsea, SW3

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Tris C left this review about The Chelsea Pig

Dating from the late 17th century, this was originally the Black Lion. Rebuilt in 1892, I used to come here a bit in the early ‘90s when it was the Front Page, my last visit being in Easter 1995. Back then, it was a rather upmarket pub, but describing it as being a pub was not problematic; you could get a decent pint here. Now, you get greeted by Front of House.
The black interior is best viewed on the bar’s website, but items of note are the panelled wall with backlit ‘portholes’ with images of insects at centre. The most striking item is the ‘aquarium’ (see photo), which contains a mannequin wearing a late 19th century diving apparatus, complete with piped bubbles; it’s all very bizarre. The place is self-important enough to justify painting the name of the pub’s interior designer to the exterior’s corner; the first ‘designer’ pub? Staff wear white tie: black trousers, white dinner jackets, white waistcoats and plum coloured bow ties. Furniture is mixed, some being conventional, customers being beautiful people who are undoubtedly local.
The emphasis hear is very much on cocktails, with three anonymous chrome founts, me being furnished with a half of Menabrea Blonda at an unsurprising £3.25 a half, but with a 49p service charge applied, me standing at the bar by the founts.
This has to be the most manipulated and pretentious Victorian pub I’ve ever visited, with some of the most bizarre items of décor I could never have imagined, but with the lack of real ale and nuclear prices, I’ll not be back.

On 4^th December 2021 - rating: 3
[User has posted 2022 recommendations about 1987 pubs]