TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/988448
But hold your horses. Let's start with a venue that at least puts subsequent riffs in the proper key. For THE STAR TAVERN is not a gastropub at all, just a classic of the old school. As it happens, you can have a perfectly serviceable meal here too. But if you just want an unadulterated British experience—a pint of ale, in a setting that could not be anywhere else on the planet— then head to 6 Belgrave Square Mews West, SW1X 8HT. Actually, if you know your way round the city, that Belgravia address will rightly alert you that there can be nothing too "typical" about this place. Sure enough, the Star—originally a haunt of coachmen and valets, hidden as it is among Georgian mansions so noble that many nowadays serve as embassies—has at times been a favourite hangout for high life with a taste for low company: film stars and princesses, artists and politicians, gamblers and spies; not to mention the gentlemen who planned the Great Train Robbery upstairs. Even it is a secret from most Londoners, tucked away down a cobbled mews behind the German Embassy. But to those who cherish The Star as a sanctuary from the fumes and noise of the West End—Hyde Park Corner, the chaotic centrifuge of downtown traffic, is just the Tuesday