The Ten Bells

The Ten Bells is located on Commercial Street and is a traditional pub stretching over 3 floors, serving beers, ales, wines and cocktails. On a Wednesday evening there was a nice buzz as they were fairly busy and the nice weather meant people were spilling out on to the pavement. There was one table for 2 which we grabbed while one of us waited in the queue to be served. The service is prettttty slow however when we finally got served the lady was really friendly. I went for their homemade earl grey gin with tonic which was very refreshing and added a nice touch that it wasn’t your usual Gordon’s. The ale choice on tap is limited and costs just under £5.
The place isn’t anything special, with a rustic décor but is not offensive either. I’ll be back for a weekend drink when in the area.

I was there for at Patrick’s, this bar is all you can expect from a pub. Cheap bier, nice barmen/​maids, live music, good crowd.

Had a lot of fun watching the World Cup Rugby here last weekend after shopping at Spitalfields. I’m learning so much — apparently there’s less yelling at the TV when England isn’t playing and you can’t possibly cheer for Australia.
Comfortable couches and some less comfortable wooden chairs. Nice to get a glass of wasabi peas to snack on with our drinks (not sure if we had to pay for the peas or not).
The stairwell down to the bathrooms (and the bathrooms themselves) are covered with graffiti that is a bit intense. Unlikely to bring my mother here, but happy to come back with friends!

Decent pub, decent beer, nothing exciting.
Came for a few beers on a Thursday night, it was inevitably rammed outside, people enjoying the last vestiges of summer. YET WE GOT A TABLE. Mind blown.
The beer has tasted good each time I’ve visited previously, so they’re looking after things right. I’ve never eaten (not sure if they even do food).
I would come back here. Definitely. It’s a good spot, good fun and you can hear yourself over the music. (I know that makes me sound super old but hey, conversation is important!)

Cool pub with excellent drinks! The history of the pub is interesting too cause it evolves around the Jack and the Ripper ERA. Fascinating and the walk to the watercloset is a trip in itself. Enjoy!

Mention has been made in previous reviews of the history of this pub. Well, for the benefit of future Unilocalers I can add a little to what has been said already. The Ten Bells was one of a number of pubs which mostly served the porters, tanners and slaughter men who lived or worked in Spitalfields. On the night of her death, Jack the Ripper’s final victim, Mary Kelly, was seen drinking in here. Given its role in JTR lore, some time in The 70s it was renamed «the Jack The Ripper» which lasted until the 90s when it reverted to its original name. Although now serving the very different clientele of Spitalfields it has retained the wonderful Victorian tiled interior. The beer selection focuses on Truman’s ales but the bar has other ales and continental beers. I haven’t eaten here yet though I went this new years eve with some American relatives. It was busy but service was efficient. The Ten Bells is a great East End pub and the best in that area in my view.

Interesting little pub. The first I visited whilst in London. Supposedly a couple of Jack The Ripper’s victims somehow met up there prior to being murdered. Maybe this was a popular pub during those times. It seemed pretty busy the afternoon we went.
It’s across the street from the Spitalfields so we warmed up here with a couple of beers. The place seemed kinda creepy but I don’t know why until I Googled it when I got back to the hotel that night.
The staircase down to the ladies was kinda scary.
The bartender was cool. He didn’t really check up on us or anything. Just served us our beer and kept doing his thing. I was just excited cause it was my very first pub in London.
I had a Camden Hells Lager, which was from the tap and very tasty. I asked the bartender if it was brewed locally and he said it came from Northern London which was just a few miles away.
I think this pub is a-​okay but I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit when I come back. There are so many more to try!

If you need to go to the bathroom here, I’d recommend you just hold it. Yep, until you get home. It’s for the best.
Otherwise this place is a decent enough boozer. It’s seen better days, we sat on a table that was literally diagonal as it was on a bit of a hill so we sloped downward, which isn’t the worst if you’ve already had a few.

A morbid historical tie to Jack the Ripper and a prime location on the shoreditch scene this bar does have, but not much more than that. It is mostly crowded, which I don’t mind and usually expect. The drinks are mediocre, I also don’t mind this under the right conditions/​circumstances. The food is only so-​so, leaning more toward the unforgettable.
In short its a whole string of slight let downs that coalesce into a much bigger overall let down. I’m not saying don’t go and I’m not saying that if you do go you wont have a jolly time — I’m simply saying its best not making it the highlight of you night in Shoreditch.

I love the ten bells and these are the reasons why:
1. It’s got history and shizzle (Jack the Ripper found his victims here or something)
2. It’s got a central bar which you access from all areas (this pleases me)
3. The food is actually quite surprising– not what you’d expect in a small pub– it’s quite adventurous
4. The location is ideal for the start to a shoreditch night out.
On the flipside, the drinks are pretty average, but hey, it’s a pub not a cocktail bar. Who cares. Also, it gets pretty rammed in here most evenings, so don’t expect a seat unless you want to sit on the pavement looking edgy-​cool and smoking (this seems to be bang on trend at the ten bells, just saying).

This is not a review of the Ten Bells pub. There are lots of those. This is a review of the restaurant above it, which was a pop-​up and is now permanent, apparently. From what I could tell, the pub was horrible. Go there at your own risk.
But the restaurant isn’t horrible. Not horrible at all. In fact, the restaurant is bloody super and you can quote Jeffrey Archer on that, although I’m not absolutely positive he said it. It looked like him. If it wasn’t, and he’s reading this, then I can only apologise for my behaviour. If it makes you feel any better, your blood washed right out of my shirt.
How to describe it without sounding like a tit, assuming that horse hasn’t bolted already? Quick mis-​en-​scene partner’s birthday. We told them. They were charming. They brought us iced pink drinks, which I normally find infuriating, but these were pleasant and presumably contained pomegranate.
My partner had buttermilk-​cooked chicken and came close to leaving me for it. I had some razor clams, at least partly because she doesn’t like them, but my pre-​emptive selfishness was rewarded with an elysian starter: subtle and meaty in a tangy, citrusy sauve vierge. I had a lamb dish, which had frankly too much lamb in it but which was cooked beautifully, just as pink as the lamb will stand and no more. Dessert was too much, so we had cucumber sorbets with Hendricks Gin. They were refreshingly spectacular.
It should be awful. Poncey, irritating, the neon scrawl décor juxtaposed with a sort of old-​worldy dark wood pubness that screams punchable hipster, sat above a nasty pub that spills out onto the street, is standing room only, and where they whinge at you if you take your drink outside of a scrawled chalk line on the pavement. Don’t please go to the pub. Go to the restaurant, marvel at the knowledgeable, welcoming staff and stuff your hole with brilliant cooking. Excellent. Oh yes, and £80 for two. Bloody reasonable too.

Being a complete and utter history «nerd», I have wanted to go to The Ten Bells since I read about it in a book about Jack the Ripper. A lot of the internal parts of the pub have been largely untouched since it was built (original tiles, original columns, etc.), so it really does ooze history. And I have to say, apparently stopping in on a Monday afternoon is the way to go, as there were very few people in the place (and only 2 hipsters — YAY!), so it was extremely easy to get a drink and find a seat.
The bartender was happy to tell another couple a bit about the history of the Ten Bells while we were there, so my husband and I just sat back at our table, enjoyed our drinks, and listened to them chat. Yes, there is the whole Ripper angle here, but there’s also the fact that this is a genuine old pub from the mid-​1700s, much older than a lot of places you’d find in the states. So, I loved it. Plus, the tiles on the wall are amazing — the pattern is a little bit dizzying, but they just don’t decorate places like this anymore. There’s also a mural on one wall that dates back to the late 19^th century.
The location is great — very close to Spitalfields Market; and the clientele the day we were there was a good mix of locals and tourists. As I love visiting the Market, I can easily see myself stopping back into the Ten Bells again, as long as it’s not packed to the brim the next time I happen to be in the area!

En nuestra visita a Londres, esta vez no pudo faltar la pinta en este bar, donde paraba Jack el Destripador. Y es que a mi colega le gustan estas cosas, y había que venir.
Tuvimos suerte, hacía una noche espectacular, y encontramos sitio en la mesa al lado de las escaleras que bajan al lúgubre baño.
No había mucha gente, así que en seguida nos atendieron en la barra. Una chica amabilísima nos explicó la diferencia entre varias de las cervezas, incluso nos dió a probar, y salimos contentísimos.
La experiencia fue muy agradable. El garito se fue llenando, pero nosotros estábamos agustísimo.
Repetiremos la próxima vez, seguro.

Crowded, Cramped. Noisy, lots of Hipsters, lots of Americans and Fosters on Tap.
If all of these things appeal to you at once, this is the place for you.

Great boozer off Bricklane, Jack the Ripper suposedly frequented the place (it’s near Bacon street) and so the Tour stops here also.
It gets pretty crowded, there are not many seats and the toilets are dodgy but overall, it is a very charming boozer!
Recommend!

You can discount my rating as I’m an American and overall highly impressed with every London pub I enter. The Ten Bells has a good set of taps and options for lagers and real ales. Liked vibe and patrons.

Really cool little pub just a stone’s throw from Brick Lane. Popular amongst the locals you won’t find a seat after 7pm Thursday Saturday but there is a really chilled out vibe and if you are lucky enough to grab a sofa you’ll find you spend the whole evening curled up in the corner as you feel right at home.
Cool staff, good range of drinks at reasonable prices, great décor and devoid of tourists yay!

I’m going to have to go with the crowd here.
There’s the whole Jack the Ripper angle.
You’ll find more un-​lensed glasses and right check trousers than you can shake a stick of 541 that you’re going to build your new fixie out of at (hint, guys, the 80s and early 90s/​grunge were a bad time for fashion. I lived through it one time already and don’t remember it all that fondly).
On the upside, it’s actually a decent place to have a pint. They’ve not destroyed it with shiteloads of tat and have just left everything kind of mouldering in place. The staff are pretty helpful and do pour a decent pint, but the tall blond guy needs a thwack and walking papers for trying to pour my guinness in a single go. It’d have been three stars but for that.

What does this place have going for it? A big room with a bar. Lots of sidewalk space. Good history. Very random crowd.
What this place doesn’t have – DECENT BATHROOMS. OMG! Someone graffiti’d «This way to hell» in the stairway and the comment was spot on. The stench was ghastly and the stalls didn’t close. And the vomit in the stall that did close didn’t help.
A decent place to get a drink, but lacking anything special.

ce pub vous prend aux tripes des que vous posez un pied a l’interieur.-ambiance glauque et mythique. le parfait pub anglais a voir absolument!

Being the morbid weirdo that I am, I was always interested in visiting The Ten Bells just because of its ties to Jack the Ripper. So, I was ridiculously excited when I found out that the Jack the Ripper walking tour in London ended here at The Ten Bells. Experiencing it was another story. We had to wait 20 minutes just to get in because there was approximately 1,073 people shoved into this tiny little place. When we finally did get in, it was dark, dirty and there were WAY too many people touching me (I have personal space issues :P) We weren’t able to get a seat anywhere, so we had to just hover around the bar, being jostled while trying to drink. The drinks were okay, the service was okay… but the noise was a bit much.
I will say I kinda like the décor and the general feel of the place… but it wasn’t spectacular. So seriously, what’s the big deal?

‘The Ten Bells’ is a slightly dilapidated pub located on Commercial Street, just in front of Spitalfields and the big White Chapel. The outside of the building clearly needs a brand new coat of paint, but then again, this pub was already alive during the late 1880’s so maybe we can forgive it for that. Located right in the middle of Jack the Ripper’s favourite haunts, it is believed that he might have met one of his victims here.
The inside only contains one room, but is fairly cozy with a couple of armchairs and sofas. It is perhaps best to venture there on a warm day when you will be able to take your pint out to the front stairs of the white chapel or stay on the pavements. With a lot of imagination and minus the indie-​styled East London crowd and the DJ booth, it is perhaps still possible to feel the pub’s exciting history. The old tiles on the walls provide a good reminder, popping out in their Dickensian way. I always enjoy this pub and its crowd, but if you are part of the bitter group of people who believe that the East End is getting its soul ripped out by the trendy hipsters, perhaps this is not the place for you.