A Blitz Survivor with an Oval Bar and Live Jazz Most Nights
A Grade II-listed East End boozer standing alone on a canalside street in Mile End, pouring cask ale and Guinness to a room that has refused to change. Bring cash. Sit in the Saloon. Wait for the band.
Red cabaret lighting hits the gold chintz wallpaper, and the walls are covered in signed pictures of jockeys and old celebrities you half-recognise. The bar is oval — a full oval, not the horseshoe compromise most pubs settle for — and it sits in the middle of two rooms that operate as two different pubs sharing a beer supply. The Public Bar at the front is where the regulars drink. The Saloon at the rear is where everyone else ends up.
The Palm Tree stands alone on Grove Road in Mile End, beside the Regent's Canal in Mile End Park, on a street the Blitz otherwise flattened. It is Grade II listed and it has not been renovated into anything. There is no cocktail menu, no small-plates board, no natural wine list, and no host with an iPad. There is cask ale, Guinness, lager, a handful of unrefrigerated bottles, and — most evenings — a live jazz band setting up in the corner.
A proper East End boozer with an oval bar, live jazz most nights, and zero interest in becoming anything else.
Editorial Deep
Two cask ales rotate on the hand pulls — Mighty Oak Maldon Gold turns up often enough to count as the house beer — with Guinness alongside and Stella covering the lager slot. That is the programme. Bottled beers exist but sit unrefrigerated behind the bar, which is a genuine drawback if you were hoping for a cold lager from a bottle; order what's on cask instead and the problem disappears.
At six on a weekday, the Palm Tree runs quiet and warm — the red cabaret lighting doing most of the work, the gold chintz walls absorbing what little daylight makes it through, the signed photographs of jockeys and long-forgotten celebrities keeping the eye busy while the room fills. By nine, with a jazz quartet set up in the corner of the Saloon, the same room becomes a genuine event. The oval bar means the staff face every drinker directly, which changes how a round is ordered and how long you stand waiting.
Mile End locals in the Public Bar, a mix of East End residents and jazz-curious visitors from further afield in the Saloon, and a refreshing absence of the Shoreditch overspill that has colonised most pubs east of Liverpool Street. On band nights the room tightens up and the volume climbs — conversation gets harder around the music, and that trade is exactly what the crowd is here for. The atmosphere holds because of the people in it; a gentrified version of this pub with the same wallpaper and the same jazz would not feel the same at all.
Bring cash — the pub is cash-only and the nearest ATM is a five-minute walk. There is no cover for the jazz, which on the right night is the best-value entertainment in E3.
This is the best version of a specific kind of London evening — a canalside pint in summer, or a winter Wednesday with a jazz quartet and a Guinness, in a room that has refused to modernise. Come back for the band, sit in the Saloon, and don't come at all if you need a food menu, a wine list, or staff trained in hospitality-school warmth. The Palm Tree is a Marmite pub and it knows it. That is why the people who love it, love it.
Order this
Drink this.
Whatever cask ale is on, or a Guinness
“A Blitz-survivor East End boozer with an oval bar and live jazz most nights. Go for the band, sit in the Saloon, bring cash.”
The Palm Tree is not for everyone and does not pretend to be. It is a Grade II-listed pub on a Blitz-flattened stretch of Grove Road, cash-only, no cocktails, minimal food, with two cask ales, Guinness, Stella, and a live jazz programme most weekends. Sit in the Saloon, not the Public Bar. Arrive before nine if you want a seat. Draw cash before you walk over — the nearest ATM is five minutes away and the bar takes nothing else. Skip it if you want a menu, a wine list, or a bartender who knows what a Negroni is.
The Verdict
