The Pocket in Canonbury Lane is enjoying a good month – being named Time Out’s best new independent pub, and now awarded winter pub of the season by the north London branch of CAMRA.
It also has plans for the first floor function room – opening from March for a month-long residency with supper clubs operator Big Plates.
Every Saturday they will be serving an “intimate feast” with the likes of pork and prunes, butter chicken pie, and chocolate and stout pudding.
Peter Holt opened The Pocket in spring 2025 after spotting the empty bar on his route from his Kentish Town home to his brewery in Hackney Wick.
“I cycled past it every day for a year and it had a for sale sign outside it,” he says.
“It was a bit risky, it’s small, the area’s a bit funny, but it was in a really lovely building which we like.
“The previous owners had gutted it – plumbing, toilets, woodwork, everything. It was a blank canvas and an interesting challenge.”
Peter opened the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town in 2009, which has a traditional pub atmosphere with open fire, selection of cask ales and ciders, and pub snacks like sausage rolls and pork pies.
“When we took it over it had fruit machines and Fosters lager – they had about 12 customers,” he says.
“There was a nostalgic element to it,” he says. “Memories of drinking in old pubs in the Midlands with my dad when we would seek out these little old places.
“It’s funny we are a country famous around the world for our great pubs, but thousands of them are owned by big chains and forced to sell rubbish beer. It’s criminal.”
In 2012, Peter started Hackney-based Howling Hops Brewery.
“I just got interested in beer from selling it and at the time there wasn’t so much good beer available or that many breweries in London.”
There’s no marketing strategy for either pub – their popularity has spread through word of mouth from the candlelit corners, to dominos and cards on offer, and the music – whole albums played on vinyl, with weekly music sessions on the pianos.
“They are fundamentally very simple,” says Peter.
“At first with The Pocket we wanted to do something completely different to the Southampton, but then decided – do what we know works.
“Good beer feels like an obvious thing to sell but a lot of places can’t because they are tied to some horrible chain or have to sell the same big brands that have been forced down our throat for years, and some don’t because they don’t know any different.”
Pasties and pies are delivered weekly from Cornwall which Peter says is easy “and doesn’t involve any chefs”.
Of the current climate, he says: “The Pocket has been busy. It surprised me, I was worried about the location but it’s been good.
“It’s definitely got tougher, your slice of the pie gets smaller and smaller. Twenty years ago you could make a decent living out of it. Now you have to be careful watching the pennies.”
Tickets to the Big Plates supper clubs are available on www.tickettailor.co.uk.
The Pocket is located at 25, Canonbury Lane, N1.
