The Chandos

Cheap and cheerful

A great central location for drinks after work, this pub serves the cheapest pints in this part of town. It does get very busy and since the smoking ban the upstairs room can smell a bit of farts! The toilets could do with updating too!

Ahhhh, The Chandos

I live at least 3 miles away from it but I still call The Chandos my local. It's full of Sam Smith's rebel juice (he fell out with brother John Smith and set up his own brewery). It's cheap, it's dark and full of happy people. Students, foreigners, professionals, wasters and theatre-goers. Just like a west-end pub should be.

Essential drinking hole.

Always time for a cheeky Chandos!

Great for top quality Samuel Smith's brewed beers (and one of the cheapest pints in London that I know of). Can get pretty busy most evenings and the Opera Bar (upstairs) can be a squeeze on a Friday night! Friendly bar staff and locals make this worth a trip after work with your colleagues, but I wouldn't go out of my way on a weekend for example!

Heather Mills - not in here

This is definately a pub for the boys you wont find any gold diggers in here - cheap pints nice staff good decor with nice little booths for privacy. If you want a swanky trendy bar go up the road this is a proper old skool boozer!

Good pub

This place is pretty good. Great Samuel Smith beer, comfortable seating and friendly service. Could be a bit brighter... but otherwise a nice place for an afternoon drink

Cheap pint anyone?

What a great pub…who could not like The Chandos, the drinks are cheap, the food is good and reasonably priced. If you ever go, make sure you sit upstairs…it’s like a whole new world up there…really comfortable, lots of space and really good service. We often pop in on a Friday lunch and it’s usually busy, but not too busy…having checked out most places in the area, this pub is at the top of the list!

Smelly

This place smells of wet tramps.

It has home made beer that gives you a headache although you could buy a football squad a round and still have change from a fiver.

It's like drinking in the pub in Holyoakes where every brand of drink looks similar to something you'd want to drink but isn't quite right

Booth....

This is one of the finest PUBS in London. It's not a bar, the food won't win any michelin stars and a vodka coke is probably the closest you'll get to a cocktail.

However, the decor, atmosphere and victorian booths make the pub. Also the beer's not bad and is only £2.10 a pint. It's a great place to catch up with friends over a beer.

Get there early to grab a booth.

A cheap pint? In the West-End?!

At first I wasn't the biggest fan of this pub - it was a Friday afternoon and the place was full of crumblies. Then I went to the bar...

Sure its a Samuel Smith pub and with it comes its own brews but £2.10 a pint?! For me that represents fantastic value. This helped me learn to appreciate its slightly unremarkable interior - old school and still helplessly clinging on to the smell of cigarettes, though not overbearingly so. Great booths downstairs, so popular are they that for the Boys Friday Lunchtime Pints, we have to leave at 1pm on the dot to stand any chance of securing one. Too popular, as they're sometimes frustratingly taken up by lone persons!

Not the sort of fancy place popular with spoilt, Daddy's girl socialites I'm afraid, but us boys absolutely love it. It is the perfect place for us to either hold Fantasy Football League auctions or seriously debate the current affairs of a begone week. All hail The Man In The Box!!! Did I mention its only £2.10 a pint?

A real boozer!

You just can't argue with the value if this place, it has been mentioned in many of it's reviews already but a pint for 2 quid? Isn't that what the bloke with the cask fixed to the top of the building is there for - shouting it from the rooftops?!

I only go in there at lunchtime so the vibe then is very much an old man's one, I can only imagine how busy and loud it gets at night. But rightfully so.

The booths are great, I love the 'real' pub decor, the darkness of downstairs is a stark contrast to upstairs, it's like two different venues almost. Go and check it out, it is a little hidden gem within the busy expensive venues near Leicester Square.

One pint of the man in the box, please!

I am not sure what people expect from a Sam Smith pub that is bang in the middle of town and next to one of the busiest tourist spots in the country.

Of course it's full of tourists, of course the beer is cheap and the wine rubbish.

However, I really like the old booths downstairs and the 'man in the box' lager - shame they changed the display a few years ago though. Ayingerbrau all the way!

The Chandos gets my vote and deserves more credit than it seems to be getting.

Drink

Very close to Trafalgar & Leicester Square this is a good meeting spot.

It's a Sam Smith's pub so don't expect regular brands just their odd homemade brews! The pub itself is pretty big and full of odd designs. They also serve food till about 10pm.

Good pub

Exactly what a pub should be. Cheap beer. Good quality simple food. Good, friendly service. A lot of pubs could learn from this model. A little does go a long way.

Beer on the cheap

As a Sammy Smiths you get what you expect... cheap beer with a simple, if not classic english pub, decor and atmosphere. The added benefit it t's surroundings. Not a place to spend an evening it is a great starting point to have a couple of drinks before frequenting the more expensive trendier locations in Covent Garden and Soho. A great location for a lunchtime beer or two. Downstairs is dark and private with lots of booths. Upstairs is the nicer decor with comfy seats and a bar menu that is very generous in portions. Worth a visit if you want to pay £2 for a pint rather than the £4 average for the area.

Out the Door Before Ordering!

Ok, so I did visit in a Friday night, but to be honest it wasn't that busy - it certainly wasn't busy enough to warrant the service I received.

From the moment I walked into this brightly lit odd place I thought 'mistake'. It lacked atmosphere, and due to the lack of music the drone of people squealing and shouting was just tedious.

That was not the worst bit. We approached the bar and as soon as we had done so a couple proceed to push right in front of us and get served, after the barman had us seen waiting there first! We decided to let that one go.

Now the couple have departed and it's our turn again, or so you would think? Up steps a next guy yelling to the barman it's his turn - it is quite clearly not his turn and in true Chandos fashion the barman serves the yelling man again before us, knowing full well we were first!

This could have been excused if the staff were quick, but they weren't they were just dithering around preparing lack luster drinks.

Needless to say I abruptly left after the final insult. All in all, I never even stayed for a drink.

Not a pint of my best, thank you

I paid a visit to this pub for the first time last night solely as the chosen meeting place for a trip to the National Portrait Gallery located nearby. Trafalgar Square is a terrific spot to dabble in some Central London nightlife; although I did my very best to tow an enjoyable party-line in this particular venue, it will not remain a pleasing port of call on my horizon.

The highly invasive level of talkative noise and an even more highly potent smell of everything Samuel Smith has to offer pervaded my ears and nose as I searched the heaving crowds for my companions. We then spent good drinking-time leaning closely into each other to make our conversation heard – being constantly aided in this by swinging shoulder-bag wearers squeezing past – which is not a particularly conducive way to recount long stories about life or to share those oh-so-witty punch-lines which need 100% aural attention.

The most positive points I can record have to be the lovely company I kept, the harried but pleasant bar staff remembering my requests for “Malibu and pineapple WITH NO ICE and straw, please!” and a rather fit young man who not only caught my eye at the bar with his gorgeous smile but later thrust his number into my sweaty palm as I vacated the premises.

All hail to drinkers more able and willing to enjoy repeated experiences here.

A Sam Smiths

Pretty much what you would expect from a Sam Smith's pub but with added benefit of being next door to Trafalgar Square.

I tend to go here before visiting the ICA as the bar there can be full of you know whos and is definitely a lot more expensive.

What a find

Before I moved to London, my local was a Samuel Smith's pub, so I was delighted to stumble across this one so centrally in London. Imagine my pleasure when I found that the prices aren't much more than they are back up North!

Anywhere you can pick up a good pint for less than £2 has got to be worth some consideration. All the more so if it is as canny a pub as The Chandos. Pair the prices with a good number of fairly private booths and reasonable standing space downstairs, and a well-turned out area of sofas and seating upstairs and you've got a good local, but in central London.

Being on Trafalgar Square means it's easy to direct people to if you're meeting someone who doesn't know London that well, too.