The Crown and Two Chairmen (Bar)

Top 10 things you need to know about the Crown and Two Chairman pub:
 
1) Soho on a Saturday night; the drunken weave on the pavements, lit with candy-coloured neon lights. Dean Street is awash with dressed-up girls, moonstruck couples and out-of-town visitors consorting in the noisy air.
 
2) The Crown and Two Chairman pub is spilling over with revellers. It’s as over-stuffed as the cushion on the pub’s sign, propping up the regal derriere. But the only queen in residence is Beyonce whose dulcet tones compete with the high-spirited Saturday night songs, gossip and flirting.
 
3) As we turf a poor couple off their table, (they are gracious, it’s a friendly spot), it becomes clear that this is a forum for the beginning of revelry, not a leisurely meal. The barman arrives with menus and charms us with a crisp pint of Camden Hells lager, brewed up the road.
 
4) Rather than hover on the outskirts of the party unfolding around us, we plump for party food: calamari, burgers and fried chicken.
 
5) As the two women on the table next to us get technical about how to improve dimensions of big hair with precise backcombing, the calarami arrives with a bottle of Rioja.
 
6) The squid yields nicely and is knocked back with a lusty (huge) glass of red. It’s a reminder that the nourishment element of a night out can be sorely missed in London.
 
7) Fighting through a sing-a-long of some nineties classics, the waiter delivers fried chicken, mac and cheese, fries and a pork and chorizo burger. 
 
8) Our meal is shared close up, to chat over the party, and relished over some hard-core people watching. There are more obvious places in Soho for dinner, but the dishes here are salty, spicy, savoury and carbohydrate dense. We devour.
 
9) Breaking open a salted caramel and chocolate cheesecake with clotted cream, we realise that a pub with food on a busy Saturday is an asset with many Soho hours ahead to while away.
 
10) The point of the Crown and Two Chairman pub isn’t being the regal outsider hidden in the carriage – it’s getting up close and personal with the good, great and badly behaved of Soho. Fill up your wine glass, order some sustenance for the night ahead and warm up your vocal chords....read more