please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Young's Bitter was in superb condition when I called-in last Thursday luchtime. Very handy for quick pint when using liverpool Street Station.
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Zabadak - Young's have now stopped supplying Stella to all of their pubs and so none of them are allowed to stock it!
Strongbow now £3.55 per pint! This must be the most expensive about at the moment, when will it stop going up?
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Went to the cellar bar on Friday last for a private function. Not bad although the air-con wasn't working. Also, got there about 7.30pm, no Stella! Already? On a Friday? Sheesh! Also, there was only one barman serving so had to wait 15 mins to get served my first drink of the day. Ladyfriend not amused!
Apart from that, all was OK.
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First time in last Sunday and only stopped for the one. Enjoyed the place and will certainly call in again
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I have been to this pub on a Thursday too and I must agree we had a great night - we also saw that weird little guy hanging around the bar and the barmaids - must be that Newbo guy tortoise68 mentioned!
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Fantastic pub. Really busy on a Thursday. Try and go to top bar. Smashing barmaid called Lucie serving, but be careful ...... always a short guy (She calls him Newbo, I think) boring her !!!
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Let's face it, Young's beer isn't very good. If Fullers had this it would be worth visiting more than once.
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Have called in here on and off for over 20years its about the best i have found in this area.
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KENINCAMDEN real funny name .....not 2nd August 2007.
I DON'T GET THE REAL FUNNY NAME BIT.
IT IS A WORLD FAMOUS PUB WITH THE HISTORY BIULT AROUND.... DIRTY DICK nick name for Nathanial Bentley. circa 1745.
look up the history and you will understand.
Out of all the pubs in the area i rate DDs one of the most friendly.
not for the people who think the word dick can only mean one think.
By the way. Is your name Richard??????
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real fuuny name ....not. You'll be hard pudhed to find a decent place to drink round Liverpool Street, this place no different.
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ok, but very overated,I think it is living on its reputation from years ago when it was a good pub
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Fantastic PUB,
Lets hope it stays this way and the Pub co is not allowed to change it.
Enjoy the atmosphere especialy on a Friday pm.
Draught Leffe left me a bit wobbly though.
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Nice down to earth pub, nice for meeting people out of the train station, though prices a bit expensive. But would go here again if on a crawl in the area!
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A classic boozer that doesn't pretent to be anything it isn't.
That said I was very surprised to find Strongbow priced at £3.20 a few weeks back. The P&P next door,that you'd expect to be more expensive, was still £3.00 for the same drink.
However this wouldn't stop me going there as I do like the place, but imagine my further disbelief when I popped back last week and it had gone up again to £3.35!
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ummmm.....old man young's still very much there!
anonymous - 20 Mar 2007 16:46 |
The good thing about this pub is now that old man Young has gone, it's possible to get a decent pint here (Bombadier).
anonymous - 16 Feb 2007 19:44 |
Excellent just excellent
This place has barely changed since I first started drinking here in 1989 (indeed I can remember seeing Cameroon tonk the Argies in the opening game of the 1990 World Cup)
Small moment of apprehension when the Essex man/girl magnet P&P opened next door but Dirty Dick's sails on as one of the finest City watering holes
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Perfect place to get a decent pint of Youngs before getting the tube/train home.
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Been visiting here on and off for a few years - it's a clean, tidy pub and a pleasant place to stop off for a pint if you happen to be in the area.
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A timeless classic.
Nice busy atmostphere and serves a good pint of Young's.
Many is the time I've been lured in there on the way back to Liverpool Street.
How times change: this pub, along with most in the City, used to close before 9pm and you wouldn't get served unless you were wearing a suit...
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That eastern European barmaid upstairs is stunning! Great pub too, if a little smoky.
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Great service, friendly staff, makes it !
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Funnily enough, I too visited this pub for the first time in years (7, I think) and would agree with Moose58 that it hasn't changed one bit.
It's a good pub, provided you like Young's beer which I can't say I do all that much.
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This was an absolutely fabulous boozer. I haven't been inside Dirty Dick's for about 5 years and I know that doesn't matter. The place never changes (good), the beer never changes (better) and it is still the only proper place in the city to pop out for "45 minutes". I love it.
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been here a few times and normally go into the ground level bar , quite roomy and nice a proper old looking place in the middle of the glass of the city .
get a nice drop of beer here and the staff are friendly a nice place during the day when the suits are at work
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I wish the dirty stuff was back. Good. I like Young's beer but Not all their current new look pub refurbishments - too much travelodge yellow in them for me. You can tell it's a Young's pub But there are lots of good corners and stuff in here and I liked it especially for it's location. It's a pity there was no Dirty Dick's on handpump in there for novelty value. Barman serving had a pleasant manner.
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not bad place for quiet pint of youngs mid afternoon, though i notice despite the air conditioning???? it doesnt amount to much of a concession to the majority of us non smokers
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My Grandad used to drink in this pub many years ago...still a good place to stop for a drink after work.
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Brilliant old mans pub. Dingy, smokey atmosphere but pleasant service and is set out on 3 levels so you can usually get a table if there before 5pm....
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Back in the mid-late 70's my Uncle and Aunt were landlord and landlady of Dirty Dicks. Many a fun night was had stroking the cat on the wall with my uncle pulling the cord and the cat spinning.
I have not been there in 25 years so cant say what it's like now, but here is a bit of history...
Nathaniel Bentley was an ironmonger who had a shop in Leadenhall Street.
On the eve of his wedding, tragedy struck. His bride-to-be died. So distraught was Nathaniel that he locked up the room in which he had prepared the wedding feast, never to enter it again.
A broken man, he neither washed or changed his clothes. When his cats died he just left them.
The English love an eccentric and his notoriety meant his business flourished. When Nathaniel retired in 1804, the landlord of the Old Port Wine Shop in Bishopsgate bought the contents lock, stock and dead cats. He put them on display at his pub and renamed it 'Dirty Dick's'.
In 1870 the pub was rebuilt from ground level, the wine vaults are part of the original building. The 'dirty' contents were carefully relocated in the new pub.
Sadly it was decided in the mid nineteen-eighties that a clean up was in order and the dirty artefacts were cleared away.
Today's cleaned-up pub is pleasant with bare floor boards and an abundance of timber beams. The upstairs bar forms a gallery and the vaulted cellar houses the restaurant.
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Well beat me with a jambock..!!
Stopped in for a beer just before lunchtime, the downstairs bar was very quiet, Cricket on TV, some light music filling the room and the Saffa barman having the fundamentals of the 24 hour clock explained to him!It was Ok for a quick stop off I guess and I feel that I must have arrived too early as the place was unremarkable.....except for the fact that I paid THREE pounds of a pint of lager for the first (and hopefully the last)time in my life!
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Stop Press! Nono has left and moved to Colchester in darkest Essex. This is a terribly sad event although Dirty Dicks will live on regardless.
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Went there a few times in the late 70s. I was stationed outside of Huntingdon. On several of the trips to London, we had to take newbies to this pub.
I've heard they cleaned it up since then. When I was there, there were all sorts of items stapled or glued to the walls. If you sat in a booth, you could spend quite some time just reading all the stuff added to the walls.
By that time, there were 2 or 3 cats that were stuck to the walls, mainly in the areas behind the bar. There was also a small alligator that was hanging from the ceiling.
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Just had a very pleasant lunch here, (upstairs). New menu launched yesterday. The food here rarely disappoints and Nono always looks after you. Where else in the City can you get such a decent knife and fork for and a pint for less than a tenner?
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Everyone who drinks here wants either a quick divorce or an orange peel nose (potentially both).
Definitely a drinkers pub! These people understand what an aspiring alcoholic needs from them, a quick pint or 7 before staggering back to the trains.
This is not a place to pull, or even think about pulling.
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a good one, this...great place to go solo - a professional's boozer...lovely set of optics
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Not somewhere I'd stay too long, but a good place to meet for a couple of pints of Youngs beer - which is pretty good. It's over 3 floors, so you'll generally get a seat and (although I agree with womble about staying away from pubs near mainline stations) it's a lot better than the other offerings in the area - i.e. Hamiltons, White Hart, Railway, etc.
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Good grief! You all like it! Let me provide a bit of balance. It would be an OK pub downstairs were it not for the fact that the weekday clientele are some of the more revolting elements of City of London culture. This is a pub for those office juniors who do not have the salaries or expense accounts of their elders and betters. However, it does not put off the photocopier crew from a-hooting and a-hollering about how great they all are and how maybe they can even afford a car - next year. It is too dark to tell if the girls are girls or some other sort of Bishopgate life. Perhaps this is the reason why so many fellow posters on this page have had so much trouble 'pulling'. Most drinkers aspire to be able to pull their braces at the next promotion. The only pulling not going on is the pulling of decent pints in a solid pub atmosphere, which you will not get here. Continue into Spittalfields and go searching there instead - it really does prove the old adage that no pub within 500m of a mainline railway station is worth the effort.
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Lol at Spel's comment re. the barmaid. She is a good lass that one, if a bit excitable! The professionaly bored looking Nordic barmaid is my favourite, I tried to put a move on her one night but got warned off by the barmaid Spel mentions. Don't try don't get!
Nice friendly staff, bit of atmosphere if you want a traditional city pub with a bit of character. Lots of history to this pub, look it up!
Ideal for a few sherbets before moving up to the bars of Shoreditch or the West End Etc. We use it as a meeting point for eveyone coming in from various parts of the capital / Essex etc before we head out later, very nicely situated for that outside as its right outside Liv st Station. on Bishopsgate, just past the Old Bill station and the All Bar One meat market ;o)
Best place is upstairs, less busy, somewhere to sit.
Someone said it's a blokes pub, although whenever i've been its been just slightly less than half and half blokes and ladies I reckon so don't be put off by that. Seen some very nice young ladies in here actually, including the Nordic barmaid (think she is Swedish?).
Give it a whirl.
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Nice pub with well-kept Young's beers. Upstairs normally provides some seeting, if you don't mind being served by a strange lezbian with short hair that changes colour often.
Good pub for the City.
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Good, authentic old fashioned city boozer. Gets pretty rammed downstairs but there's always a table to be had on the first floor - and by the time this shuts (early) the crowd downstairs has generally thinned. Usual range of Youngs beers, well kept. Food is good if on the pricey side (and it's not really the sort of place you would come to on expenses!) This and the Shooting Star (round the corner) are a lifesaver at this end of the City.
Mr Lash - 11 Nov 2004 12:39 |
Great pub and in my opinion serves the best bitter in the Liverpool Street area. One of the few around here to have ambience, but the early-closing of the upstairs bar is annoying.
wpjh - 13 Oct 2004 16:36 |
Just gets better. The new menu upstairs, (weekdays until 3pm), is as good as anything you will find. Pies, chops, good drinking food. Does a lovely bottle of Rioja too.
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good pub. used to be a dirty old man's house. now its a boozer with top beers - its a bloke's drinking pub, but a great place. unusual.
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Excellent beer. I was drinking the wonderful Christmas Pudding Ale last Thursday as they still have some left over! The food upstairs is great fodder - especially the Barnsley Chop. I will continue to drink in this pub for as long as I live. Love it.
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Good range of Youngs beers both draught and bottles. Good atmosphere and one of the better City pubs.
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Still genius. Best pub in the city by a distance - if only they'd keep the upstairs open longer of an evening.
Matt - 12 Jan 2004 12:26 |
rudest staff i have ever come across. They where unwilling to listen when I attempted to make a compliaint to the point where the manager just walked away before i had even said three words. Barstaff argued that although my sister is alergic to red wine i had ordered it for her and refused to listen to reason then calling me Rude. Totally outrageous I will never go there again.
j wiseman - 30 Oct 2003 14:22 |
only place round the area where you might get a seat (upstairs). Much much much better than Hamilton Hall, and nice bar staff.
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During WWll I used to occasionally take the current Popsy down to this oasis, which was not as tarted up as it is obviously now, but which enjoyed a better prestige than it now seems to possess. The cat mentioned by Tracy was a mummified old moggie mounted impressively on a polished wooden board, and bearing an impressive small notice that it brought great good luck to stroke the animal. Having alerted the barman with a couple of bob, the sheila was persuaded that this was reputed to be very effective. As soon as she touched the corpse, the barman pulled the string, the back legs of the feline jerked, the sheila got airborne, and the assembled drinkers went into paroxysms of laughter! As far as the Popsy was concerned, this was sometimes counterproductive! As I remember, (which is not always accurate these days) it was a Dive Bar, and you descended a flight of steps which were worn till the air almost showed through, to enter through a battered and split door which had been 'repaired' with the aid of the side of a Price's Ships Candles box affixed across the split. An ambience all of it's own! Bob
R.W.Coddington - 5 Aug 2003 13:40 |
Not as out-of-date as the other reviews make it sound, although stuffed with bizarre crap hanging on the walls. One of the few pubs in this area with anything approximating an atmosphere (try the White Hart on Liverpool St. for a good stab at Worst Pub Ever). The staff dooperate a bizarre policy of shutting the cozy upstairs bar at 9:30p.m. though. Stays clear of the Essex-ness of nearby pubs on Friday nights - it's like there's a sign at the door saying "NO BACK OFFICE ALLOWED".
Matt - 5 Aug 2003 06:09 |
Apparrently in the 40's the landlord had a dead cat rigged up on the wall, when you pulled it's tail it's eyes lit up!?!
Tracy - 1 Aug 2003 13:16 |
incomparable service and bar staff, lovely pint of guinness
chris mchale - 26 Jun 2003 14:17 |
During WWII one of my relatives when he was on leave went to this pub. He was an Irish Tenor with a beautiful voice, he used to sing for free beer. He was from Fredericton New Brunswick Canada but he always talked about missing Dirty Dick's... I was always wondering what the heck he was talking about until I went to it this year!
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I visited the pub in 1944 and was impressed I think
Tom Hurry - 22 Feb 2003 00:54 |
In 1949 my sister and myself were on route to spend Christmas with our grandparent in Bethnal Green. We stood oppersite the Dirty Dick waiting for a No. 8 bus I promised myself that one day I would go in the Dirty Dick. It was Christmas eve and our parents had charge of the luggage and I had charge of our Budgie in its cage. So if anyone remembers being stared at by a little girl holding a cage with pigtails it was me. Today I fulfill that wish and went in for a sherry and a roast beef dinner. I wont leave it that long before I go back again this time with my sister.
Sheila Rix - 19 Jan 2003 23:30 |
My father used to go to this pub when he was on leave in London during WWII. His base was in Ipswich in Northern England. Their train would arrive at nearby Liverpool station, and this was the nearest pub. They probably didn't have too much time before the pubs closed. He spoke if the dark, cobwebbed atmoshpere of the place. It was one of the places I sought out on my trip to London in 1997. The exterior may not have changed much, but I believe the interior has been renovated from those WWII days. It made a big impression on my Dad. He spoke of it often.
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This place is especially good in hot whether as it has very good air conditioning.
Alistair - 28 Nov 2002 14:55 |
Dirty Dicks is a "Must Go To" pub. It has a great luncheon food bar upstairs and a Bar with atmosphere downstairs. The Barkeeps will tell you wonderful stories about it's history. You'll love it.
Ruth Rasmer - 20 Oct 2002 15:13 |
