London’s Irish pubs with Thai food: “Thairish” to those au fait. Gerry O’Brien, the landlord at Kensington’s famously floral Churchill Arms until 2017, is thought to have kicked it all off decades ago. These days the marriage runs deep, from the Faltering Fullback in Finsbury Park to Whelan’s in Bloomsbury. The Three Cranes on Garlick Hill is my local. They pour an excellent Guinness and serve Pad See Ew for a tenner upstairs.
The Ring is where I need to send you today. It’s an old boozer in Southwark with roots dating back to 1783, a corner site with a curved frontage and a rousing history. The place is a homage to the Ring boxing arena, which opened in the old Surrey Chapel in 1910 with the aim to be cheap enough for the working classes to attend. In its pomp, Bella of Blackfriars, believed to be the world’s first female boxing promoter, ran the show.
