The Chandos

This is my favourite local haunt. As a Sam Smith pub my top picks will always be the fruity beers and a packet of their pork scratchings!
The upstairs has a cosy feel, especially if you can nab a sofa seat or one of the window perches for two.
Downstairs has more of a rough and ready vibe and works better for meets of big groups of people in my opinion!
Only frustrating part is there’s never any signal or wifi and in true classic Sam Smith style they don’t offer any wifi.

Located right behind Trafalgar Square, this is an excellent respite from all the tourists and grime of the inner city. However, like most places located this close to the main city, the food isn’t superb. It’s pretty good– I got the chicken and ham pie and though it was tasty it seemed like it had maybe been pre made and then heated up right before it was served. The service and ambience are great however! Very casual and our server (a nice American girl) helped lots with choosing a pint to go with our meal. Not sure if i’d return but it definitely is one of the better places in that area.

reasonably priced and good interior inside alot of party booths!

My party of 5 arrived just as they opened. A sandwich sign was at the entrance advertising their delicious food. We were seated and went to the bar to order. We were informed that they only sold food upstairs.
We walked up the stairs and had a seat. The waiter informed us there was a party of 58 coming in soon so we would have to order quickly.
I quickly went to the bar to order. First I ordered drinks. Then as I was placing my food order the manager walked in and berated the staff for seating us and taking our order. I told him I had ordered my drink with the assumption I would be consuming it when I eat. I asked him to comp it. He said you will pay and you will not be served lunch. I asked him why the staff was uninformed about the fact that they were not to serve food to the patrons. He said he didn’t have enough reserved signs to place them on all the tables. He was really yelling and being abrupt.
Managers who have a party of 58 should communicate to the upstairs and downstairs staff that the restaurant is closed for a private party. He should not berate his staff publicly. He should learn service recovery.

Had a blast here last night, great food, great staff, even better drinks. We grabbed a pint downstairs and made our way up stairs to the air conditioned section and ended up spending 3 hours drinking and meeting a bunch of people. Can’t wait to go back.

Lovely setting, and such a peaceful respite from the crowds just below. I expected it to be a lovely, atmospheric pub. But, I did NOT expect for the food to be as good as it was. Mind, the vegetables had been nuked to be re-​heated (as was my entrée, likely). But, it was still tasty and affordable, and a far cry above what you could get from nearby eatery, Pret.
TIPS for Americans: if you are eating food, head upstairs and grab a table. Your table should have a number on it. Place your order at the bar, pay, and give them the number — they’ll bring the food to you.

I initially stepped in and out of the pub because I was concerned with its proximity to major tourist sites and didn’t want to be duped into paying for overpriced boring pub food. However, I was pleasantly surprised once I decided to give it a chance how good the food was and how excellent the beer was! It also helped that it was filled with locals. The beers offered are numerous and there are a lot of great food choices including standard pub far but with some extra additions as well. If you’re looking for a bite and a pint near Trafalgar, this place is definitely worth a stop.

Awesome place! Great place to stop and grab some lunch after a trip to the National Gallery. I loved the traditional look & the staff was so friendly and helpful. Would recommend to anyone in the area!

Solid traditional English pub in a great location in front of Trafalgar Sq near the Charring Cross underground. A Samuel Smith pub with a mostly full list of their offerings exclusively. Nice closed off booths and lots of floor space for the after work crowds. Nothing to write home to mum about, but did the job :)

An extremely busy Sam Smiths Pub just down from Leicester Square. Lots of wood as you would expect on a traditional pub. Beer price and quality was ok. Getting a seat forget it !!!

One of my favorite London pubs since 2005.
Every year in the summer I’m visiting London for the Proms (and, more recently, for the CAMRA Great National Beer Festival) — and every time I’ll stop by The Chandos at least half a dozen times — it’s one of my favorite pubs in the British capital (the other is the Mad Bishop and Bear atop Paddington Station).
Be aware that The Chandos is owned by the independent Samuel Smith brewery of Tadcaster/​Yorkshire. Not to be confused with John Smith’s — also of Tadcaster/​Yorkshire (the two were brothers who got into a fight so John Smith opened his own brewery). While John Smith’s offer a single brand of bland, totally forgettable bitter — SAMUEL Smith’s has a broad range of bitters, lagers (at least 4!), IPA, fruit beers, stouts, and wheat beer (the only truly good British cloudy wheat!) — ALL of them good. You won’t find a single weak link among them — even though they’re mostly not real ales.
The Chandos has two floors, each of them one big room, essentially. While the ground floor is a dedicated watering hole, and the first the restaurant area — actually you can order food (at the bars) and eat it on either floor. Speaking of food, it’s traditional pub grub (fish & chips, various meat pies — you get the idea) — and as such, rather mediocre. With Chinatown Soho close by (as well as many, many other steakhouses, cafés, pizzerias and what not), there is really no point in eating here — BUT it has to be said, for such a premium location, even as pub grub in general is concerned, the food at The Chandos is truly cheap. So mediocre food at a highly competitive price — your choice!
On the ground floor there is a selection of comfy «separées» — and that is where you want to sit if you’re a couple or anything up to four people. The cute, decorated stained glass windows are another attraction of this pub. Naturally, these are the places where everybody’s heading — so if it’s a busy time (every day from 4 p.m. and of course weeknights and weekends), you may just forget about that and sit someplace else.
The service at The Chandos (usually 2 young men behind the bar) is efficient and professionally friendly. Expect queues though during busy periods. You may have to wait for up to 5 – 8 minutes to be able to order your beers or food when it’s getting busy. Food will be brought to your table.
Seating is more comfy on the upper floor, it’s a bit more stylish. But the true British pub experience you’ll find on the ground floor. After a while you’ll notice not only the same waiters, but also some regular patrons (some of them after years and years!).
Great pub opposite of the National Portrait Gallery, a 2 minute walk from Trafalgar Square.

This pub is one of my favourites. Despite being so central there are often free seats, due to their inventive and practical use of the upstairs area, e.g. using the windowsills as seats.
The drink is very reasonably priced. So is the food, which is also pretty decent.

A great place to unwind after a busy week! A very good location combined with bustling ambiance and friendly staff. I’ve never been to the second floor where they serve food as all the fun is downstairs at the ground floor where there are decent cheese toasts and a humble selection of crisps and peanuts you can nibble while enjoying your drinks. There is a good selection of beers of which my boyfriend is a fan and I like the cocktails and wines they offer. This time I tried the white Zinfandel and I liked it.
Hadn’t I seen the rolls of toilet paper being stored on the bathroom floor, I would have given this place 5 stars… but I guess the more you drink, the less you start to care each time you go to the toilet and see these. Anyway, I love this place and will keep on going there because I always have a good time.

Nice location close to Trafalgar Square, comfy seating, very friendly staff — many from Australia, pub lunch menu around ⁵⁄₈ pounds the meal and 4 pounds for a pint. I even needed to charge my phone and the bar man offered to charge it behind the counter ;)

I love coming here once in a while for a pint. It’s a really great place and seems to be a very traditional pub. No TVs or trivia machines here. The whole place seems to try and keep people talking to each other, as opposed to distracted by other «stuff».
The beer here is really tasty as well! I love the comfy spots around the whole place to sit and chat. Would highly recommend coming here!

As a Yank, this hits me as weird that you would close at 11pm or so on a Thursday night when you still have plenty of people and plenty of people on the street. Oh well this was close to my hotel, and my local friends wanted to have a few beers without to hit the insanity that is SOHO. They have ales so you can drink those, wasn’t extremely expensive given that it is a block off Trafalgar Square.
If you are in the area and need a beer, why not. I do like going pub hopping looking for ales that I haven’t consumed before.

Went here because Rick Steves recommended it in his book. And of course the minute I walk in I see other people in there with Rick Steves books… go figure lol. But of course, I also saw a lot of locals grabbing a drink after work and socializing. Aka… IT WAS PACKED DURING HAPPY HOUR TIME lol. We had to creep and stalk for a while before we got a table upstairs.
The place is a very traditional pub like with people standing, sitting on bar stools to booths, to couches, to single couch chairs/​comfy fabric chairs etc. Oh, and its pretty chilly so girls, unless you drinking a good amount you might be chilly upstairs.
As for the beer, I can’t remember what we had but it was so creamy and smooth, delicious. The food we ordered was fish and chips, chicken masala or something like that and a bunch of those meat pies things (see pics). I have to say honestly none of the food was that good since its pub food lol, so make sure your drinking when your eating here. And considering I can’t really drink, wasn’t that much fun being their eating pub food sober –_​-​. lol, but if I could drink I think I would have liked this place more.
Oh, and this pub is kid friendly, lots of families when I went.
Overall, nice little pub, beer is good, food is meh when your sober, make sure your drinking when you eat the food like all pub/​bar food lol. Not a fan as I probably wouldn’t go back but its okay.

Real old pub.
Very loud the evening we went which was a Thursday. There are two levels so seeing and hearing that there was a lads night out going on downstairs we went up stairs. There is a bar up there also which is good and lots of sofas to kick back on and have your chat. Did get a little loud but better than downstairs.
Bar did not have a great wine selection but probably not the sort of place if you are looking to flick through a wine list.
Close to the stations so good location for the drink on the way home from your night out in Covent Garden or Leicester Square.
Noticed good old ‘find us on Unilocal’ sticker on the door so ‘go Chandos!’

The Chandos is another one of the Sam Smith’s pubs in Central London which means that you are not charged an arm and a leg for beer despite its proximity to Trafalgar Square.
As a creature of habit I usually go for the Alpine Lager but the other drinks go down well. I would happily recommend The Chandos to any tourist in the Trafalgar Square area.

This place is a weird, mixed bag, but I love it all the same. Its location makes it an interesting cross-​section for locals and tourists, and cheap beer makes it appealing even if you’d rather go someplace quieter.
My friend got slapped in the face by a drunk old man in this pub (while he often deserves to be smacked, this was not the case in this particular incident). It makes me laugh every time I’m in there. The bar staff asked the old gent to leave, which was a pleasant surprise as we were far from the center of attention and the bar was very crowded. It was quickly made a non-​issue.
Groups cycle in and out of here, so don’t be intimidated by the lack of seats when you arrive. If you get a booth, stay forevverrrr.