The City pub boasting taxidermy boar, deer and squirrel
Our Toast the City Awards celebrating the best of the Square Mile returns later this year. Adam Bloodworth dines at City pub The Jugged Hare
WHAT’S THE VIBE?
At The Jugged Hare, I pass a boar growling at me. It has been upturned and beheaded and presented unceremoniously on a dining table. Fierce-eyed boars, slender deer, zippy little squirrels: at The Jugged Hare furred beasts ogle you at every turn.
Glass cabinets display stoats hanging from meat cleavers alongside dry aged hunks of goat nduja and pancetta.
The press release calls the taxidermy a “nod” to the countryside, although this is more full-on forestry immersion than subtly. The Jugged Hare is no place for vegetarians.
They can sit at the front, which feels more like a traditional boozer. Here, the majority of the clientele have just popped in for a pint.
Sink your pint then walk through the pub to the restaurant, which retains the striking white tiled ceiling of the former Whitbread Brewery. The brewhouse closed in 1976 after 225 years on the site, which is a stone’s throw from the Barbican.
Under these gleaming stones is head chef Rafael Liuth’s nose to tail cooking, which won the best casual dining award at Morning Wire’s inaugural Toast the City awards in 2025.
WHO GOES TO THIS CITY PUB?
Older City types, normally in twos, and the odd American tourist group who’ve found the pub in a guide book. There is a surprising amount of solo diners reading quietly along the banquette.
THE FOOD
Brothers Ed and Tom Martin have been dedicated to nose-to-tail cooking since the restaurant opened in 2012. Whole animals are delivered and every part is used. This approach is most notable in their Sunday lunch: the Norfolk Hare, braised in a sauce of its own blood.
They say zero-waste “defines” their daily changing menu, promoting cuts that are “often forgotten” from turbot skin to offal. Even the sauces are in-house-made.
I started with a punchy haggis scotch egg served with a homemade horseradish sauce. A trout salad was artfully plated to show light and shade against the great hulking egg. Raw venison in a roasted bone with crisps was another example of high quality meat prepared straightforwardly.
Then I had a superlative beef pie with buttery pastry strong enough to hold its shape against huge pours of gravy. Sweet potato mash came daintily decorated with herbs although it was a tad overcooked.
Lemon and rhubarb sponge was a marriage of sweet and sour, displaying the brothers’ eye for invention.
THE CITY PUB WITH A COUNTRYSIDE APPROACH
There is a strength of character to the cooking and the best of British countryside taxidermy aesthetic is definitely unique. The pub certainly feels like a country venue transplanted in the city. The animals hanging everywhere feel provocative for London, where we like to pretend our meat has never been near an animal.
One grumble: a lack of soft furnishings – wooden chairs and that tile ceiling – mean the restaurant is loud. Avoid that by booking later at night around 9pm when the work crowd tends to clear out.
To book call 0207 139 1445 or go to etmcollection.co.uk/venue/the-jugged-hare