Brexit? Hah! Lockdowns? Shrug! Can nothing stop London?

It was not an auspicious time to open a pub in central London. When Michael Belben and his business partner took over the Eagle on Farringdon Road, Britain was in recession. Undeterred, they bought mismatched crockery from car-boot sales, removed the fruit machine and darts board and installed an open-plan kitchen and a blackboard menu. The pub was relaunched in January 1991.

In the decades since, the struggles and success of the Eagle—reputedly Britain’s first “gastropub”—have encapsulated those of London itself. At first its Mediterranean dishes were novel; but as the city’s tastes and population diversified, its formula of refined but affordable grub was widely imitated. The Eagle was unruffled by the financial crash of 2007-09; it scraped through covid-19 and its devastating social-distancing rules. For a venue that has always hired migrants from Europe, says Mr Belben, Brexit may prove “a dreadful problem”. But not yet.