All of these new luxury hotels opening up are making us believe that “discretion” is the key to luxury, and if that is the case, surely The Old Doctor Butler’s Head is the most opulent venue in London. Tucked down a pedestrian alley in the heart of the Square Mile, you only know it when you know it, and the excitement of first discovery is such that you’ll want to take that turning again and again with different friends, and go “look what’s here!”
Outside on that alleyway, City workers gather so tightly around upturned beer barrels that people trying to pass from one end to the other literally give up and come in for a pint. Inside, it’s Dickensian cosy or Dickensian rambunctious, depending on whether you’re near the bar or sitting in the tiered seating at the back. Towards the back of the ground floor, old illustrated maps of London and chalked up blackboards with daily food menus are lit by vintage brass wall lamps.
Inside the Old Doctor Butler’s Head
Get away from the chattering bankers by booking a table to dine upstairs. There, in the more serene carpeted room, tables offer views out to the drinking masses, as well as practically into the windows of the handsome Tudor reconstruction building on the other side of the alleyway. Up here, worn tomes sit atop an original fireplace framed by cofferred wooden walls, and framed City of London coat of arms certificates hang on the walls.
The pub originally opened in 1610, although the original structure was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The current building was built shortly after the blaze and is the last pub named in homage to Dr William Butler, a court physician to King James I whose “medicinal purging ale” was sold at his eponymous taverns.
Now operated by the fairly small pub group Shepherd Neame, who operate around 300 pubs and hotels throughout the South East, the menu offers promises honest pub food. When I dined one Friday lunchtime, we had our pick of the upstairs tables, which felt good, given the scrum downstairs probably didn’t even realise upstairs dining was an option.
My friend and I started with a generous sausage roll which we ripped into two, as well as some very juicy battered prawns. For mains, I had the pie of the day, with chicken, which was handmade with great, well-balanced pastry; just the right amount of butter to be indulgent but also firm enough to hold its innards without collapsing. My guest enjoyed a lighter but still indulgent chicken kiev sandwich.
‘People love the pub as it is’
The pub has recently taken on a new manager, Rebecca Whittome, who came over from the Samuel Pepys pub on the Thames. They’ll potentially get a refurbishment budget next year to straighten out some of the wooden floorboards and extend the downstairs bar, but Whittome insists any amplifications will take a less-is-more approach. “People love it as it is,” she says. “We won’t stray too far from the feel of this place.” Though, a few corners could do with more lighting, says Whittome, who also has ambitions to drive an increase in corporate and events bookings to their first and second floor rooms, the highest of which has space for 70 and the middle floor with space for 30. We go right to the top and it’s another handsome room: given their history and atmosphere, it’s a shame these spots aren’t booked out every night of the week.
Not that there’s any issue with pint pouring downstairs. “People come here for the vibe,” says Whittome succintly. I won’t name them, for fear of being barred from Dr Butler’s Head, but there really are only a handful of other City watering hotels that can compete with the atmosphere drummed up here, by that eccentric old Doctor Butler.
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