Toast the City Finalists: El Vino Fleet Street

As the Toast the City Awards hurtle towards us, Libby Brodie checks out one of our Best Bar finalists El Vino Fleet Street The Toast the City Awards are next month and, as one of the judges, I have to say I was absolutely bowled over by the spectrum of excellent hospitality options we enjoy in the Square Mile. Take finalist El Vino Fleet Street, for example. A wine shop, bar and restaurant, it began life as part of Bower & Co wine merchants in 1879 before establishing itself as El Vino, where it has remained on this site since 1923.

It became a hangout for journalists, writers and political commentators and was a regular haunt of Ian Fleming, GK Chesterton, Nigel Dempster and Peregrine Worsthorne. It became so well known in literary circles it was immortalised as the inspiration behind ‘Pomeroy’s’, the favoured pub of fictional barrister Rumpole of the Bailey.