In a contested area — near Brentford’s former Griffin Park football ground, which famously has a pub at each corner — the Black Dog’s huge beer selection, balance between trad and modish food, and comfortable garden wins out. It’s rightly rammed with football fans every other weekend once again, so either come down for the atmosphere or check Brentford’s fixtures.

The Cow has a definite food-focussed bent — the upstairs dining room serves properly good seafood — but the downstairs bar is five-star pub-nouveau. Guinness is expertly poured, and it’s well known for being one of the best places to pair a pint with a plate of oysters. The best place to drink in west London, bar none, and recently having overcome a license review that threatened its future.

“18 handpulls of full of lovely ale and cider and a fridge full of lovely meat.” If that isn’t enough to. convince a Londoner to visit this transportive wood-panelled pub, then perhaps all hope is lost — aside for some details. The beers are modern but not modish, coming across as Now That’s What I Call Pints compilation to a beer nerd and an inviting new world to the novice, while the lovely meat sees roast pork cuddled into baps. For those who don’t want lovely meat, get a plate of cheese or a vegetarian Scotch egg. It’s all built to soak up the beer, as thick and effervescent as its atmosphere.

The French House is an oddity, and a distinctly un-English pub. Beer is no longer served in half pints only, and food is served longer than lunch only now, but there are no televisions showing the football, and mobile phone use is frowned upon. It’s a place steeped in history: Charles de Gaulle led the French Resistance in exile from here during WWII, while Francis Bacon used to frequent as a customer. It’s also where a certain chef, Fergus Henderson, first cut his teeth. So it’s a place to go to interact — entertainment comes from conversation, helped along by the nearly thirty champagnes on offer by the glass.

Stained glass windows adorn the frontage of this Covent Garden local; tucked away off the Strand, it’s a favourite with the craft beer types, with a celebrated range of beers on tap at surprisingly reasonable prices. There’s something special about being able to work through a pint of modish craft-IPA in a setting so unpretentious as to seem out of place, and The Harp has a loyal following because of it. A regular on the CAMRA “best of” lists.

At nearly three centuries old, The Lamb is something of a time capsule. A Young’s pub, its tap focus is very much at the cask ale end of the spectrum, but it’s exactly this polished nostalgia that makes it such a Bloomsbury icon. Food, similarly, is modernised traditional pub fare, while the fit out retains numerous original features including the etched glass screening above the wood-panelled bar. There’s no TV, and no music either. This really is as close as it gets to stepping back in time.

Another pub saved from the jaws of London’s insatiable developers, the Wenlock Arms is an incongruous sight in the otherwise stark new-build landscape between City Road and the Regent’s Canal. The Wenlock’s focus is cask ales, craft beers and real ciders from around the UK, supplemented by a minimal (but on-point) food offering: their website promises “toasties, Pig and Hay scotch eggs & sausage rolls and pickled eggs”. Excellent.

“Off the leash and on the lash” reads the motto atop every door frame in this tiny Stokey stalwart. A proper Irish boozer, there’s not a straight line in the place — it’s all old sagging timber beams, old sagging seat cushions, and old sagging locals. They lay claim to one of London’s best pints of Guinness, and deliver on the promise. A big beer garden out back is perfect when the weather is right, but if McGregor is in the ring, squeeze inside and join the hordes yelling at the TV.

The Old Nun’s Head calls itself the “Ryan Gosling of pubs”, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the clarification helps: “basically just a really nice local pub, but a slightly weird one”. Certainly, it’s a hit with Peckham locals. Dog friendly and child friendly, with a food line up that rotates between three street food vendors and the requisite Sunday roast, it’s a weird local pub for a weird locale: the right balance of hip, old school honest, and family friendly for a neighbourhood in flux.

The Ivy House has the auspicious claim to being London’s first cooperatively-owned pub. Like others on this list it was saved from re-development by its locals, the only difference being that they’re a bit more committed south of the river: it wasn’t enough for The Ivy House’s regulars to just petition the council, they raised £1million and bought the freehold. In the 70s, the pub played host to gigs from the likes of Joe Strummer and Jeff Beck; today it continues to run a bill of live entertainment alongside its regular pub duties.

The Chesham Arms is a Hackney treasure — 150-odd years old, it was nearly demolished to make way for more property development until the efforts of a community group secured its future. Re-opened in 2015, it was awarded CAMRA East London Pub of the Year 2016. Find refuge in this quiet little back street boozer — choose from an array of real ales and local craft beers, and order in dinner from nearby Yardsale Pizza.