Like these brew-conscious restaurants, the three that follow offer a princely array of bottled and tap beers — and their menus and milieus cover the spectrum, from a classic coq au vin at a refined country pub to a chocolate milkshake for your drinking buddy in a family-friendly ale house.
* CHOCOLATE GENIUS, Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, East Village, (212) 539-8777.
If I take a bus towards Barnet (action), am I likely to get to a nice pub (state) and look for hot chocolate there (policy)?
They called him Tommy Chocolate – as they downed drinks at the pub, he preferred to sip a hot chocolate and munch on biscuits, and, well, that's just bizarre, isn't it?
The well-reviewed Italian trattoria Mercato also opened, followed by an upscale Irish pub and the boutique chocolatier Kee's Chocolates.
We filed into the Red Lion pub, not for beer but for samples of hot chocolate based on a 1692 recipe of cacao beans, sugar, cinnamon, powdered cloves, and Indian pepper (chilli), and squares of Cocoa Hernando's delicious chilli-infused dark Mexico chocolate, as we learned how chocolate was promoted to the masses as a cure-all for everything from infertility to unattractiveness.
Next arrival is The Novelist with Barney, who promptly falls asleep in his basket at the hearthside, while we repair to the pub for halves of Tewdric's Tipple, game casserole and chocolate bread and butter pudding.
So in his country pub it makes sense that venison burger with blue cheese and chocolate bread could be followed with egg custard tart, sticky toffee or rice puddings.
In the Old Town there is also an artisan brewery at the historic First In Last Out pub and an organic bakery, Judges, run by a co-founder of chocolate company Green & Black's.
Residents of a model housing estate founded by the chocolate maker George Cadbury and intended to remain free of pubs and off-licences are furious after a shop was given permission to sell alcohol.
