McVeigh to open seventh Draft House

McVeigh has acquired The Laurie Arms pub – located round the corner from the site of the former Hammersmith Palais - and will re-open it as Draft House Hammersmith on 26 Feb.

The pub’s interior is undergoing a full restoration, with attention paid to details such as the original 10-foot stained glass windows, original brick walls, Victorian pitch pine cladding and glass conservatory.

Posters and song lyrics from the Palais, which was torn down in 2013, will adorn the walls, along with artwork from McVeigh’s collection.

"The interior and playlist will be a celebration of the Hammersmith Palais - demolished in 2013,” said McVeigh.

“Many of us have happy, sweaty, pogo-ing memories of the Palais and a little bit of me died when I heard it was being torn down. Original gig posters and photos from the interior will serve as a permanent memorial to the place.”

Food and drink​

Draft House Hammersmith will serve an extensive range of craft beers on draft and in bottles, as well as optics cocktails created by Max Chater of Bump Caves.

There will be a menu of hand-crafted pies including Steak & Ale, Steak & Kidney, Chicken Leek & Ham and Spinach and Sweet Potato & Goat’s Cheese, all of which will be served with mushy marrowfat peas, and liquor or onion gravy, with optional buttery mashed potato.

The 100-cover pub will feature a large oak bar with stools and seating booths with yellow ochre banquettes, lit by antique French ceramic pendants.

Further seating will be available in the courtyard and cobbled garden, which will boast its own wooden clad ‘drinking den’.

The Draft House concept​

Mcveigh opened his first beer-focused Draft House pub on Northcote Road in Clapham in 2009 and has since rolled the concept out across London, with the Hammersmith venue taking The Draft House group to a total of seven sites.

The group aims to ‘do for beer what our culture has done for food and wine over the past twenty years’, and puts an emphasis on provenance, cellaring and serving, with each venue offering an extensive range of 'strange and wonderful brews'.

“Britain is full of public houses of all shapes, sizes and varieties, but I felt we’d lost something special in recent years from British life and I wanted to provide a place that recaptured my idea of the perfect public house,” said McVeigh.