Liverpool’s super five pubs

Liverpool is famed for its music, maritime and sporting jewels, but it’s also a mighty fine place for a pub crawl.

While many visitors flock to the Beatles-themed watering holes of the Cavern Quarter — where the Fab Four used to rock and hang out — other inviting establishments pepper the walkable city centre. Here are five photogenic spots for a pint (or whatever you’re drinking).

THE MONRO

You can’t move for Irish bars in Liverpool, where it’s thought that more than half of the population have ancestral roots in the Emerald Isle. While some boozers are festooned with gaudy green banners, images of leprechauns and references to Irish cultural icons (like Molly Malone and the Blarney Stone), The Monro embraces the craic in slightly more subtle ways.

Behind its neat Georgian frontage is a “re-imagined 100-year-old Dublin pub” set across an old merchant’s mansion from the 1700s. The decor is distressed and quirky in equal parts, with animal heads, vintage photographs, adverts and ship figureheads jutting from the walls as you tread the wooden decking (the pub is named after a passenger ship that used to sail from Liverpool to New York).

They serve a decent pint of Guinness here along with a raft of good cask ales and whiskies. The Monro’s beer garden may entice in the warmer months but if you’re here between November and March, you’ll want a seat inside by one of the crackling log fires. On Fridays and Saturdays, the pub stays open until 2.30am — one of several late-night haunts in the Ropewalks district. See monroliverpool.co.uk

ST PETER’S TAVERN

Around the corner — and run by the same group as The Monro — this is another Ropewalks favourite offering revelry with eclectic interior design. Particularly astonishing is the baroque altar — a remnant from the building’s stint as a church (1788 to 1976), during which time it served as a place of worship for Catholics, including Irish and Polish communities, while they say Mother Teresa also once attended mass here.

Later turned into Alma de Cuba, a glamorous Latin-inspired nightspot beloved by Liverpool’s footballers and celebrities, it was given a big makeover before reemerging as St Peter’s Tavern in 2024.

With drinkers of all ages congregating over four candle-lit levels, it’s ironic to think that, in the 19th century, this church was at the forefront of an abstinence campaign to combat the scourge of alcoholism afflicting Liverpool’s working classes. See stpeterstavern.co.uk

THE BRIDEWELL

Another pub vividly flaunting its past is this erstwhile Victorian police station and jail, on the edge of Ropewalks, close to the sprawling open-air shopping mall known as Liverpool ONE. The Bridewell’s name originates from a former palace of King Henry VIII that was later used as a prison in the St Bride’s Well pocket of London’s Fleet Street.

A “bridewell” became a common name for jails across Britain and the empire. Once used to detain petty criminals, including drunken sailors and dockers, this Liverpool lock-up was converted into a rehearsal space for local bands like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, before being refashioned into a pub in 2019.

Enjoy your liquid refreshment in the comfy seating of the preserved cells or mingle with the drinkers on the front patio, where a plaque has an illustration of Charles Dickens. A regular visitor to Liverpool, the author was sworn in as a special constable at the station in 1860. His research helped produce articles for his book, “The Uncommercial Traveller”. See thebridewellpub.co.uk

PHILHARMONIC DINING ROOMS

Affectionately known as “The Phil”, this ravishing pub, a one-time haunt of The Beatles, graces Liverpool’s hilltop Georgian Quarter. It sits across Hope Street from the Philharmonic Hall, a concert venue staging Liverpool’s symphony orchestra among other musical maestros.

Whether you’re coming before or after a show, or calling in as you walk between the city’s two fantastic cathedrals, this pub beguiles with its elaborate carvings, wood panelling and flamboyant tiling. The marble-clad gents’ toilets, the inviting lounges named after classical composers and the art nouveau-style metal entrance gates are seriously note-worthy.

Designed in the late 1890s by the Welsh architect Walter Thomas for the Irish-born Liverpool brewer Robert Cain, “The Phil” is Grade I listed by Historic England. You’ll struggle to find a more photogenic place for a gin and tonic (or a pie and a pint) anywhere in the country. See nicholsonspubs.co.uk

THE VINES

Arguably the biggest rival “The Phil” has in the beauty stakes is this pub, which Walter Thomas crafted the following decade for Cain, whose firm merged with another brewery, Walker’s of Warrington, in 1921.

Boasting a Grade II heritage listing, The Vines is dubbed “The Big House” by Liverpudlians and you’ll see why when you pass its imposing Edwardian exterior to enter an assortment of bars and rooms lavished with mahogany, leather and leafy vegetation. Reborn in 2023, The Vines is owned by the same people as The Monro and St Peter’s Tavern, so you may notice a few trends in the decor, notably the taxidermy. But this pub feels more ornate and grandiose, especially in the Billiard Room with its magnificent stained-glass dome.

A few minutes walk from Lime Street railway station, The Vines is a memorable place to have your last tipple before bidding Liverpool adieu. See vinesbighouse.co.uk

+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Visit Britain which has not influenced this story, or read it before publication.

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+ To help plan a trip to Liverpool and Britain, see visitliverpool.com and visitbritain.com