The Pelican | London, England
On a recent winter visit to London, a close friend and I stumble, serendipitously, upon The Pelican, a charming corner pub on Notting Hill’s All Saints Road. I leave with a new favorite pub.
Few cities capture my imagination — or heart — quite like London.
As I stroll through Hyde Park, what I really see is an older version of myself, a few blocks from my future flat, walking past the Serpentine, stopping in at Italian Gardens Café for tea and poached eggs on sourdough, and soaking up a few precious drops of British sunshine.
On Wednesday evenings, I see that future self sitting in the basement of the Stone Nest, enjoying a night of jazz after work. On Saturday, she’s peaking into the Victoria & Albert — her second visit that week — and by Sunday morning, she’s at the Columbia Road Flower Market with American friends who have come to check in on her in her newly adopted city, all hope of her return to the homeland in vain.
To put the enormity of my love for London into terms you may begin to calculate — financially, at the very least — I’ll admit that in the last two years, I’ve visited London five times. Five times.
Each visit is bookmarked by a string of texts sent to my parents describing just how much I love it here, making my British (and Londoner for ten years) mother ever proud.
A few (actual) texts sent to my parents:
“Literally moving to London!”
“Oh my god I love this place!”
“Sitting in Regent’s Park with my Greek salad and music!”
“I’ve walked 50 miles around London since Monday!”
An (actual) text back from my Dad: “Mom and I are like ‘Oh my god she’s so moving there.’”
With each visit, my love has proved no less strong, no less shakeable — a telltale sign of a full-blown, pull-out-all-the-stops, can't-go-back-now kind of love affair.
Alas, I seem to have gotten carried away — such is the effect of thinking about London for too long.
The Pelican
On a recent winter visit — visit #4 — to London, a close friend and I stumbled upon The Pelican, a charming corner pub on Notting Hill’s All Saints Road, for a pint before dinner.
The Pelican turned out to be a delightful surprise, in every way. Classic London.
A 150-year-old Victorian boozer, The Pelican was reopened in 2022 by restaurateurs James Gummer, Phil Winser, and Richard Squire. Gummer and Winser have recently gone on to open The Hero in Maida Vale and The Bull Charlbury in Oxfordshire.
Split between a pub at the front, a restaurant in the back, and a private room upstairs, the space is nothing short of stunning. Within, artful, Venetian cream walls; double-height ceilings; and warm, oak tones. Outside, egg-and-dart cornice, Victorian sash windows; hand-painted signs.
The space is filled, too, with small, quieter touches that suggest someone who believes hospitality is best imparted with an acute attention to detail has left their mark here. A stack of firewood is tucked neatly beside a handsome fireplace. Dried flowers decorate the austere, yet elegant wooden table tops. A brushed gold beer tap — not a logo in sight — centers the hand-crafted oak bar top. An ornate mirror spells out that day’s specials with handwritten, chalk letters.
I can’t help but be obsessed, too, with the hand-painted pelican sign that hangs out front.
A couple of pints between the two of us, Olivia and I sat in The Pelican’s more casual front room which houses the bar — a lively, crowded yet not too overrun space. I on the tan, leather banquette, and she on an antique, wooden stool, our eyes (and ears) drifted to the sights and sounds around us.
Outside, crowds of after-work locals spilled out to share a few pints of beer around oak barrels repurposed as tables. Inside, a warm hum of chatter filled the bar. Perhaps an unspoken ticket to entry, everyone in the place was dressed as impeccably as the space itself — a reminder that this is Notting Hill, after all.
Eye candy was a-plenty. (Within a few minutes of arriving, two handsome (and, of course beautifully dressed) Frenchmen — French — sat at the table next to us).
My only regret: I didn’t have the chance to stay for dinner. London’s Chef Owen Kenworthy who despite having recently left The Pelican to join London’s Julie’s Restaurant has set a precedent of using sustainably sourced ingredients from nearby farms (Paddock Farms, Whittington Lodge, Bruern Farms).
Ever loyal to its pub roots, The Pelican serves classic, trusted British fare, but with an elevated sensibility. The bar menu features, for example, sausage rolls, welsh rarebit, and mince on toast — a supposedly recently fashionable “retro relic.”
Another touch I (sadly) missed out on: The dinner menu, printed on thick paper stock, brief, and with amble of white space became, in fact, a canvas for servers to handwrite the specials on, opening the door for a fuller conversation about the food and — as any hospitalitarian will point out — an opportunity for a positive touchpoint with guests.
The Pelican owners believe a good pub should be the “cornerstone of any local community” more than simply a place to eat and drink. To build their own local cornerstone, The Pelican’s owners have walked the extra mile, hosting movie nights, live music, council meetings, and even pilates classes in the upstairs space. A cornerstone, indeed.
When asked in an interview why he chose a career in hospitality — a famously challenging, often thankless profession — owner James Gummer explained that his motivation is borne out of an unshakeable love for restaurants: “I tried to do something else (on everyone else’s advice) but I couldn’t shake the urge to open a restaurant. All jobs have their down days, but if there is something in the back of your mind telling you there is this other thing you want to be doing, those down days become a lot harder to handle.”
And there you have it, that inescapable fact that no matter what your individual calling may be — moving to London, pursuing a career in hospitality — the price of not pursuing can be — and often is — steep.
Lucky for all who visit his gastropub, James followed his heart.
Excellent, but I would suggest one minor edit - it's 'Welsh Rarebit' rather than 'Welsh Rabbit'.
This was so fun to read. And the pics were beautiful.