Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

A pub has stood on this Fleet Street site since 1538, and the current warren of dark rooms and cellars went up shortly after the Great Fire of 1666 — you descend into it off Wine Office Court like walking into a woodcut. It belongs to Samuel Smith's of Tadcaster, so the beer is a single-brewery affair at famously gentle prices: the cask Old Brewery Bitter is served from oak casks kept in the pub's own cellar. Go for the building and the ritual rather than a tap list; there is nowhere else in London that does either quite like this.