The Pelican, Notting Hill: A Gastropub Worth Booking Off Portobello Road

The Pelican sits at 45 All Saints Road, London W11 1HE, a six-minute walk from Westbourne Park station, and it is the Notting Hill gastropub where mince on toast costs £14 and still sells out the tables. Harden's dates the pub to 1872 and says it was relaunched in 2022 by James Gummer, Rupert Walsh and chef Owen Kenworthy. The bar keeps pub hours, noon to midnight Monday to Saturday.

The building has been a pub on this corner for more than 150 years, and the pub's own About page leans on that: All Saints Road has changed a great deal over the past century, and The Pelican has watched all of it. The 2022 relaunch kept a working bar at the front and turned the rest into a restaurant, which Harden's describes as an old pub building converted with the pub bar retained.

Owen Kenworthy came with a serious kitchen record. The Nudge, writing when the pub reopened, noted he had cooked at Sketch under Pierre Gagnaire, spent five years as co-developer and head chef of Brawn, and consulted for Angelina and Primeur. The produce story is specific too: meat and vegetables come from Paddock Farm, Whittington Lodge Farm and the group's own market garden at Bruern Farms.

The bar snacks are the cheapest way to understand the kitchen. Pork scratchings are £6, a sausage roll £9 and Welsh rarebit £10, and the spider crab toast is £16. Mince on toast at £14 is the dish Harden's reviewers single out as a staple, a plate that works as a starter or a full lunch with chips.

Cod cheeks with curry sauce are £13, and bone marrow with parsley is £15, which is the order to share between two with a drink. Oysters come as six for £26 or a dozen for £52. On the beer side, Portobello Pils is £6.50, Guinness is £7.20 and a cask ale from the wooden barrel is £7. Lucky Saint at £6.80 covers anyone not drinking.

The main courses are plain on the page and confident on the plate: onion tart with watercress at £19, onglet with shallot at £28, pork collar with cabbage at £28, hake with tomato at £30 and sea bass with green beans at £32. Sides of chips, mash or Cornish Mids potatoes are £7 each. Harden's reviewers in earlier years kept mentioning an amazing lobster pie, so ask whether it is on that week.

The wine list is longer than most pubs bother with, and glasses start at £9.50, including the Ochoa Blanco Lias and Vinos Inacayal País from Chile. Anyone celebrating can order Krug Grande Cuvée at £32 a glass. A Negroni is £13.50 and an Old Fashioned £12.50. Harden's 2026 survey puts a typical three courses with half a bottle of wine at about £70 a head.

Reservations run through SevenRooms, linked from the pub's website, and the online system takes parties of up to 10. The same booking page also lists the group's other pubs, The Fat Badger, The Hart and The Hero, which is useful when The Pelican shows nothing free.

Harden's reviewers are blunt that being this fashionable makes it hard to get a table, so plan weekend dinners well ahead. The pub opens at noon every day, so a weekday lunch is the realistic fallback. Larger groups can book the fireplace table in the pub area, which seats up to 12.

The regulars are exactly who you would expect a block from Portobello Road. Harden's reviewers describe a happening, hip crowd and the great and the good-looking of Notting Hill, The dining room is beige but tasteful, in Harden's words, with the bar's noise carrying straight through.

That noise is the main reason to skip it on some nights. One Harden's reviewer said the volume forces you to lip-read, and another noted it is not that cheap. If you want a quiet, spontaneous Saturday dinner, The Pelican is the wrong choice. Come for a weekday lunch of mince on toast and a pint instead, or book the separate Pelican Room upstairs if you are hosting a group.

The Pelican Room is the private space, and it is the prettiest part of the building: an open fire, double-height ceilings and sash windows that look onto Tavistock Gardens next door. It seats 30 for dinner or holds 50 standing. The main dining room takes à la carte groups up to 10, so anything bigger moves to the private room.

The pub also runs small events that bring a different crowd in. The What's On page lists a Calzo Club Perudo Night, a dice-game evening, on Tuesday 20 October at 7pm. Nights like that are the easiest way to see the bar side of The Pelican, when the food is snacks and the point is a long table of people playing rather than a booked dinner.

Portobello Road is about 280 metres away, roughly four minutes on foot, and the market is the obvious pairing for a Saturday lunch booking. Walk the antiques stretch in the morning, then come back down to All Saints Road once the crowds peak. Tavistock Gardens, the small green square beside the pub, is a calmer place to wait if you arrive early for a table.

From the Underground, Westbourne Park on the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines is about 420 metres away, and Ladbroke Grove is around 510 metres, or seven minutes. If The Pelican is full and you want to stay local, try the group's Fat Badger through the same booking system, or settle for bar snacks and a pint if a stool is free at the front.

Address: 45 All Saints Road, Notting Hill, London W11 1HE. Hours: Monday to Saturday 12pm to 12am, Sunday 12pm to 10.30pm. Bookings via SevenRooms for up to 10 guests online; larger parties by phone or email. Nearest stations: Westbourne Park (about six minutes) and Ladbroke Grove (about seven minutes).

Who it suits: couples who book ahead, groups that want the Pelican Room, and market shoppers after a proper lunch. Who it does not suit: anyone wanting a quiet table on a weekend night or a cheap round of pub grub. Prices above are from the menus on the pub's website in October 2026. Ask the Karpo APP for another west London pub if the tables here are gone.