The Top 23 Places to Drink Near The Walrus
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Rank 1. Charlton Arms
British Pub
A gastropub sitting right on the River Teme, with terraces that make it nearly impossible to eat inside on a fine day. The menu moves comfortably between French and British without making a fuss about it, running from fish soup with rouille to battered haddock to sticky toffee pudding. Muddy walkers, well-behaved dogs, and people on date nights all seem equally at home here. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.
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A country gastropub east of the River Dee that the village literally helped rebuild, lending tools and labour when Gary Usher's team took over a shuttered local. The seasonal menu runs to comforting bistro dishes, and the guest chef series has pulled in names like Tom Kerridge and Angela Hartnett, which is not nothing for a pub in a Cheshire hamlet. It landed on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, and walkers and cyclists seem to find it without much trouble.
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A 14th-century Grade I-listed manor house is the unlikely anchor of this sprawling south Staffordshire pub, where walkers and diners turn up in roughly equal numbers. Inside, art deco lighting and a Blue Room wrapped in a 360-degree mural sit comfortably beside the open kitchen and pizza oven. Outside, there are booths and a bookable teepee. It took Marston's Pub of the Year at the 2025 Great British Pub Awards.
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Rank 4. Crown Wharf
British Pub
The brewery tap for Joules, Crown Wharf sits on the original site of one of their first breweries, built almost entirely from reclaimed materials by a two-man crew that kept going through the pandemic. It's a proper pub with a theatre and heritage centre attached, which is not a sentence you write every day. The Great British Pub Awards named it Overall Great British Pub of the Year in 2025, and Stone seems to agree, judging by the crowd.
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Rank 7. The Boat
Modern British Pub
A Michelin-starred gastropub on a busy A-road outside Lichfield, which is either a strike against it or the whole point, depending on how you feel about destination dining. The kitchen runs a small on-site farm that feeds the menu, with local producers covering the rest, all handled with the kind of precision that makes a venison dish feel considered rather than merely seasonal. The chefs come out to explain what's on the plate, and somehow it doesn't feel annoying.
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A stream runs alongside the terrace at this rural Worcestershire gastropub, which reopened after a full refurbishment and is now drawing people out from the city. The chef came up through Carters of Moseley, and the menu sits comfortably between proper pub food and something a bit more considered: battered haddock sits beside seabass with lobster bisque, and neither feels out of place. Menus turn with the seasons, the interior is cosy, and the desserts reportedly justify the drive.
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Rank 9. Couch
Cocktail Bar
Every cocktail on the menu is built around a film, and the menu itself is designed as a picture editorial, so you're reading a small magazine before you drink. This walk-in neighbourhood cocktail bar in Stirchley topped the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list in 2026, which is a long way from a quiet side street in Birmingham. Wednesday to Saturday, 4pm onward, stools at the bar and bistro tables, no reservations required.
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Rank 10. Passing Fancies
Cocktail Bar
The menu changes constantly by design, which is the whole point of the name. This cocktail bar in Digbeth's Custard Factory keeps only twelve drinks on the list at any given time, ranging from fruity and approachable to a rye-walnut-salt number that means business. The room is laid out like a kitchen at a house party, which sounds like a cliche until you're in it. It landed on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list at number sixteen.
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Rank 11. The Two Pigs
Modern British
The name changed from the Red Lion to The Two Pigs in 2023, and so did pretty much everything else. It's a gastropub in a Staffordshire village, doing modern pub classics with produce from local farmers and a micro-farm next door. Weekend brunches, Sunday roasts, seasonal cocktails, and bar snacks running all day give the place an all-hours, good-time quality that most gastropubs only manage for dinner service.
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Rank 12. Lucky7
East Asian Cocktail Bar
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A red door street-level, a flight of stairs down, and suddenly you're in a subterranean bar lined with curtained alcoves that feels like someone converted a Victorian vault because they did. It splits into a restaurant left and a bar right, the latter being the point. Weekend booths require a reservation and a premium, so midweek regulars who know better tend to have the atmosphere to themselves and the tab to prove it.
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Rank 15. The Lord Clifden
Dive Bar
The corridor just inside the front door is lined with framed glowing reviews, which is either very confident or very self-aware, and at The Lord Clifden it's probably both. This Jewellery Quarter pub has Banksy prints, exposed brick, beautiful wood panelling, and an enormous beer garden out back. The bar straddles two rooms and the whole thing has the unhurried feel of a proper British boozer. Ale, scampi fries, pub grub.
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Rank 16. Hotel du Vin
Cocktail Bar
Turn left past the hotel lobby and you find yourself in a cocktail lounge where murals of women styled as absinthe bottles share wall space with soft Tuscan colours and a dark oak bar that stretches across two rooms. The champagne-house names painted above them set the tone: this is a place that takes its drinking seriously, even if the Pub du Vin downstairs is right there if you need an exit route.
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A red-carpeted staircase lifts you out of the four-lane chaos outside and into a hotel bar that has somehow engineered genuine calm, with high ceilings, dim lighting, and soft music doing the heavy lifting. The focal point is a pillar plastered in readable postcards, which is either charming or a lifeline if the conversation has gone quiet. The mood runs warm and a little theatrical, all flickering red tea lights and hushed tones.
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Rank 19. The Jekyll and Hyde
Cocktail Bar
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Rank 21. The Victoria
Dive Bar
Patterned carpets and stained glass windows set the tone at this old-school Birmingham pub, which somehow survived the gastropub wave with its character intact. It's a proper boozer on John Bright Street, with a ground-floor bar that feels genuinely lived-in and an upstairs lounge where the programming swings between stand-up comedy, poetry nights, and touring bands depending on the week.
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A chrome Buddha greets you at the door of this cocktail lounge and piano bar in the Brindleyplace development, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Twinkling ceiling lights, comfy chairs, and live piano most nights of the week make it easy to lose track of time. Sink into a seat at the black stone bar and the place wraps around you quickly.
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